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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



rbrougb Dust to Light 

Poems from an 
Apprenticeship 

By 
Robert Valantine Heckscher 




Boston 

Sherman, French & Company 

1911 



T s -^ £• 1 r 



Copyright, 19 11 
Sherman^ French & Company 



CI.A289152 



IN 

MEMORY 

OF 

MY FATHER 



BROKEN 

One branch, my Father, will I bear for thee; 
Thou wert too good for life, too fair for 

death — 
And thou art summoned, where no mortal 

breath 
May cloud thine image; immortality 
Fixes thy features, statue-like, for me — 
And I grow strong, in gazing from beneath: 
I thought not even to live, to lay this wreath 
Upon thy breast — alas ! 'tis God's decree : 

No more ! ... no more of tears ! But, when the 

sun 
Hangs, like an apple, and the golden Earth 
Gathers her sheaves — when every leaflet burns 
For freedom, All Hearts' Sacrifice, and yearns 
The whole world for that Day of blessed birth — 
Time turns his hour-glass, and we are one ! 



This book contains about one-third of the 
Poems of my Apprenticeship, during its first 
three years. 

I have arranged them under those attributes 
of Poetry, either from which they have mainly 
sprung, or toward which they were chiefly di- 
rected — Truth, Good and Beauty — the latter of 
which I have again divided into three parts — 
Emotion, Fancy and Fantasy. 

The Trinity of Poetry— Truth, Good and 
Beauty — enter into all perfect Poems, but into 
imperfect ones in unequal proportions. 

Under the division Truth, I have therefore 
placed those Poems which are of the nature of 
a revelation; under the division Good, those 
which enclose morality; under Emotion, songs, 
or that which, like music, in demanding imme- 
diate expression, examines not its morality ; 
under Fancy and Fantasy, those Poems which 
are so characterized by their use of images. 

For the sake of gathering the "Songs from 
a Garden," however, I have transposed a few 
Poems. Were I asked, however, why they 
nearly all have as their motive Good — I should 
reply that, to me, all heavenly things seem to 
owe their beauty to their obedience to divine 



l^otes 

laws, that is, to being Good; and so the flower 
seems ever an illustration of some divine law. 
Thus it has been my care to admire it in that 
light, and to determine what divine law it has 
obeyed to become so beautiful. In a word, I 
have felt that whatever is true to Heaven, the 
Ideal State, or the Truth — whatever is thus 
Good — will be Beautiful, it being an Appear- 
ance, Illustration, or Expression of that 
Eternal Truth. 

Metaphorically, therefore, the flowers may 
well be called the stars, the Angels' eyes, that 
best show their thoughts and feelings — and per- 
haps those Angels are men's Souls. 

It may be noted that the three divisions — 
Truth, Good and Beauty — correspond to the 
Religious or Prophetic, the Moral, and the Ar- 
tistic or Aesthetic. 

Perhaps, too, it may be worth their while to 
some for them to notice a variation on the usual 
Shakespearian form of the Sonnet — where — 
instead of tagging the couplet to the quatrains 
— ^by allowing the emotion to crystallize in its 
own form, I have discovered more unity and 
climax in letting the three quatrains, like waves, 
break over into the couplet. 

This Preface, however, in which I entrust 
to the Reader a simple confession of the 



sources and object of this work, was intended 
neither to raise his hopes, nor to show any value 
in my work, but rather in how far it falls short 
of my ideals. 

I have been obliged to write — never too often, 
but often too poorly — by a constant perception 
of Life through Nature, of Spiritual Laws in 
Natural Phenomena — the Perception of Unity. 
I would define my Motives, therefore, as the 
"Illustration of Law," or as the "Interpretation 
of Natural Phenomena in Terms of Life." 

However often I have failed, or spent my 
time on subjects unworthy — or rather unworth- 
ily, for I have found no subject uninteresting, 
as every mood reveals something of Life — these 
were the intentions. And the dominant notes will 
be found to be those of Compensation, Unity, 
the "Raison D'etre" or useful Function of Evil, 
and Evolution with its eternal round of Re- 
birth. 

However often I have tried to keep to these 
high themes, the work has resulted in a sort of 
Panorama, the Panorama of Life. And it is 
for this reason, namely, that I have found no 
subject or mood uninteresting, because it re- 
vealed Life, however weak, that I pray the 
reader to accept these Poems in the Spirit, 
rather than in the Letter — and, if I seem to 



assign too high a motive to these miserable 
works, to remember with pity, that even the 
Poor proceed from God. 

R. V. H. 

Strafford, 1908 

Rome, 1909 

P. S. — Thanks is due the Atlantic Monthly 
for permission to reprint several poems. 



CONTENTS 




Crutb 

ELEUSINIAN . . . . . 


Page 
3 


A PICTURE ...... 


3 


A VISION OF THE JUDGMENT 


4 


DIRURNAL MOTION . . . . 


4 


LIFE IN DEATH . . . . . 


5 


THE MARCH OF STARS . . . . 


5 


UNFORGIVENESS . . . . . 


6 


GRASS ...... 


6 


GOD'S HOUR-GLASS . . . . 


7 


POETRY ..... 


7 


DEATH IN CHURCH 


8 


ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 


8 


MY OCEAN ...... 


9 


FORGIVEN . . . , . 


9 


MUSIC GOING HOME . . . , 


10 


SHIELDED ..... 


10 


TRANSCENDENT REALITY . . . . 


11 


THE THREE SILENCES 


11 


A BIRD'S MESSAGE 


12 


SURFEIT ..... 


12 


TO ONE DEPARTED 


13 


THE BROOK .... 


14 


IN DARKNESS .... 


14 


WEDDED ..... 


15 


RAINDROPS ON THE LAKE 


15 


MY SOUL ..... 


16 


TRANSUBSTANTIATION 


16 


IF WE BUT KNEW . . . , 


17 


SHADOWS OF IMMORTALITY 


17 


THE SUN ..... 


18 


CONCERNING A THING IN WHICH WE FEEL SOME 




HIDDEN WANT . . . . 


18 



GOD THE MARTYR . 

CHANGE 

LIFE FROM LOVE . 

YOUTH AND MAIDENHOOD 

BIRDS 

IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD 

NEW LIFE . 

RESURRECTION 

THE LIFE OF THE DEW 

THE UNDYING TRUTH 

LOVE AND GROWTH 

GHOSTS 

THE SOUL'S VOICE 

WE SEE TOO LATE 

BY THE SEA 

A SAILOR'S KNOT 

HEAVEN 

LIFE 

THE WRITING AND THE READING 

WONDER 

SIGNAL FIRES 

MINE 

A FOSSIL 

GOD'S SHIELD 

THE JUDGE . 

FRAGMENTS OF ETERNITY 

THE NEVER-PRESENT PRESENT 

CHANGE 

THE OPAL HEART . 

HOPE 

ELECTRICITY 

A BRIGHT OLD SOUL 

ON PRIDE . 



Good 

JOY FROM SORROW 



37 



THE BRAKE 
I AM FOR YOU 
ARTISTS 
STRANGERS 
THE GOOD IN WOE 
THE LIGHT-HOUSE 
THE CROWN OF STRIFE 
CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART 
TO I. H. 
THE ASS . 

AT SEA 

THE EVERGREENS IN SNOW 
LOVE FROM SORROW 
LABOR: A VESPER . 
ON RECEIPT OF THE SONNETS ON HIS BLINDNESS 
YOUTH 

A VISION OF CONSCIENCE . 
SONGS FROM A GARDEN . 
I. BREAKING . 
II. ROSES AND THORNS 

III. FLOWERS FROM DUST 

IV. EARTH AND DEW . 
V. FLOWER AND STAR 

VI. A FLOWER 
VII. FLOWER OF LIFE 
VIII. THE BRAVERY OF FLOWERS 
IX. TO DAISY .... 
X. A LEGEND OF FLOWERS 
XI. AND SOME FELL UPON STONY PLACES 
XII. THE IVY AND THE WALL 

XIII. LOVE AND SORROW 

XIV. THE DIVINE ROSE-BUSH 
XV. SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN 

XVI. 'TIS MINE TO SMILE OR MOURN . 
XVII. THE DIVINE DESPAIR 
XVIII. A BLUEBELL 



Page 
3T 
37 
37 
38 
39 
40 
41 
41 
42 
43 
44 
44 
45 
45 
46 
46 
46 
47 
47 
47 
47 
47 
48 
48 
49 
50 
50 
51 
51 



53 
54 
54 
54 
55 



XIX. THE GARDEN 
XX. A VIOLET 
XXII. A ROSE BUD 
XXII. THE RAIN 

I. THE SUN DRAWING RAIN 
II. THE RAIN . 
III. AFTER THE RAIN 

XXIII. AMONG THE DAISES 

XXIV. THE STAR IN THE DEW 
XXV. RED ROSE OR WHITE 

XXVI. HEAVEN'S ANSWER 
XXVII. THE BEAUTY OF MORTALITY 
XXVIII. VERSE WITH FLOWERS 
XXIX. A WILD ROSE 
XXX. A BLUE VIOLET 
XXXI. A GOLDEN ROSE 
XXXII. THE COLOR OF FLOWERS 

XXXIII. TO A ROSE 

XXXIV. A ROSE'S HEART 
XXXV. THE BURNING BUSH 

XXXVI. THREE LITTLE BLUEBELLS 
XXXVII. FLOWER-RED 
DAILY THE TRAGEDY DIVINE 
I. SUNSET 
II. DAWN 
THE TUNING 

A PSALM .... 

KING SORROW 

TO ONE WHO COMETH FROM THE HOLY 
TO ROSE .... 

BEFORE THE BROOK 
LADY OF SORROWS . 
THE FIR-TREE AND THE PALM 
WERE THINGS NOT AS THEY ARE 
A CRIPPLE .... 
TO DISPARAGEMENT 



LAND 









Page 


MY WINDOW ..... 80 


A MOUNTAINEER . 






80 


THE ETERNAL HUMAN 






81 


THE LAST LAUREL 






S2 


LOVE IN DEATH 






82 


THE END AND THE BEGINNING 






82 


WORTHINESS 






83 


THE RAINBOW 






83 


THE SPARROW-HAWK 






84 


AFTER THE RAIN . 






85 


THE WEDDING GARMENT . 






85 


JOY AND SORROW . 






86 


FORTITUDE . 






87 


THE KINGBIRD AND THE CROW 






88 


TO A CHILD 






89 


A LONE STAR 






89 


IT'S ALL IN THE HEART 






90 


THE COMPASS 






90 


THE COMPANION 






91 


HARP OF THE HEART 






91 


A LITTLE RESURRECTION . 






92 


THE HOLY LIGHT OF SORROW 






92 


FLING WIDE THE WINDOWS 






93 



Beauty — emotion 



THE GENIUS 


. 


97 


HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR 


, 


97 


MUSIC IN THE MINSTER . 


, 


98 


TEARS .... 


, 


98 


THE MIDNIGHT BELL 


. 


99 


FAITH .... 


. 


99 


A LITTLE RHAPSODY 


, 


100 


TRUE TO THE KINDRED POINTS OF 


HEAVEN 




AND HOME 




101 


A SONG IN THE MOUNTAINS 


. 


102 


A WILD ROSE 


. 


103 









Page 


THE MEADOW-LARK .... 104 


MAN IS UNDER NATURE'S BAN 






105 


HYMN TO THE RISING SUN 






105 


SATYR SONG 






106 


A SONG OF SLEEP . 






106 


A SONG OF MELANCHOLY . 






lor 


SAFE AND SURE 






108 


THE CURSE OF CAIN 






108 


JUST ONCE 






109 


LOVE AND DEATH . 






109 


A SCOTCH SONG 






110 


SPRING 






110 


TO ONE 






111 


THE WINTER OF THE SOUL 






112 


LOVE AND AGE 






112 


THE CALL IN THE HEART 






113 


HEREDITY . 






113 


TO THE SPHINX 






113 


A MADRIGAL 






114 


POVERTY 






114 


THE HIDDEN LIFE 






115 


MAN AND BEAUTY . 






115 


A LOVE SONG 






116 


THE LIGHT 






117 


THE BUTTERFLY AND THE ROSE 






117 


TO A SUNSET 






118 


LOVE'S REPENTANCE 






118 


MY MOTHER'S MUSIC 






119 


THE MASTER-SINGER 






119 


A VACANT HOUSE . 






120 


VETERANS . . . , 






120 


Beauty — fancy 


TO A BUTTERFLY ..... 125 


A MERMAID'S SONG .... 128 


MEMORY .... 


, 




129 







Page 


HEART OF EARTH . . . . . 


129 


TO A MOMENT . . . . . 


130 


LOVE AND SPRING . . . . . 


131 


SECRETS BY THE WAY . . . . 


132 


ON THE WAY . . . . . 


134 


HEART'S SEASONS . . . . . 


136 


A BIRD SONG TO THE SPRING 


136 


CHILD TALK . . . . . 


137 


EVE ...... 


137 


A JOY ..... 


138 


THE BIRDS ..... 


138 


MY HOUSEHOLD .... 


139 


A DEWDROP .... 


139 


THE SOUL ON BEAUTY 


140 


MEMORY ..... 


140 


BALLARD OF THE ROSE AND THE BEE . 


141 


"MY LASSIE HA'E A CANNIE ART" 


142 


LOVE IN DEATH .... 


142 


LIFE AGAIN 




143 


A DREAM 




143 


A MOTH 




143 


CLEARING . 




144 


HER COMPASS 




144 


LOVE'S ABLUTION 




145 


Beauty — fantasy 




THE WHITE MOUNTAIN 


149 


THE INDIAN HELEN 


149 


THE TREE OF LIFE 


150 


I. AT SUNSET .... 


150 


II. AT DAWN .... 


150 


THREE MINIATURES 


151 


PEACOCK O' THE NIGHT 


151 


ELEPHANT 0' THE STORM 


151 


FAN 0' THE RAINBOW 


151 


THE SHIP OF SLUMI 


3ER . 


152 









Page 


A BAT SONG ..... 152 


SPRING 






153 


MELODIES OF DEATH 






153 


I. THE ROSE 






153 


II. THE STAR 






153 


TONE PORTRAITS . 






154 


I. SUNRISE 






154 


II. SUNSET 






154 


MY GLOBE . 






155 


A DREAM AT SEA . 






156 


NOT A KISS . 






156 


BY THE BROOK 






157 


EDEN 






160 


THE LAND OF ! . 






160 


TIME'S WATCH 






161 


SLEEP-WALKING 






161 


CORAL ISLANDS 






162 


THE GODDESS OF THE DEAD 






162 


THE SHORE 






163 


THE TUNNEL 






163 


LOVE'S MUSIC 






164 


THE SEA OF SLEEP 






164 


THE EMBER HEART AND HANDS C 


>F SNO^ 


V 


165 


A GHOSTLY MORNING 






165 


GOD'S ACRE 






166 


THE CANOE 






166 


THE WINE-PRESS . 






167 


TH E-LILY-OF-TH E-FIELD 






167 


REST 






168 


LAUGHTER 






168 


DAWN 






168 


AGE 






168 


THREE ROSES IN ONE 






169 



Crutb 



ELEUSINIAN 

Enough ! that I have known tremendous things — * 
Stood, Hke a star, above the night subhme — ■ 
Watching the movements of the Watch of Time, 
Hearing the exquisite music of its rings ; 
To this all else is naught — what Poet sings, 
Painters depict, or what Musicians chime — 
For I have heard and seen tremendous things 
Unutterable, save in God's own rhyme ! 

All Heaven lies about me, which I see 
Entering to my soul — ^but to express 
Would be to build another world more fair; 
This, God forbid, to such a soul as me — 
Except, when startled by its loveliness. 
To call thee in — His praise beyond compare! 



A PICTURE 

Just a beam of sunlight drooping 

In a dusty attic room — 
Just a little woman stooping 

Over sewing in the gloom — 
Just a worn and sunken bedstead 

And a single broken chair — 
And yet — ah, God! how beautiful, 

A world is hiding there ! 



4 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A VISION OF THE JUDGMENT 
I STOOD in dream on the embattled shore, 
Whose frowning cliffs o'erbrowed the 

thundering deep — 
When lo! with vision clear and boundless sweep, 
I saw an emptied sea, and its vast floor 
Swarming, as if with black flies, covered o'er 
By living millions ! Some did pray and weep, 
While some, with faces wan and clenched, did creep 
And grovel, as their robes and hair they tore ! 

Then spake an Angel, brandishing his sword — 
*'Arise ! ye Pure in Heart — your home be mine !" 
But, in those millions, not one made a sign: 
Then cried I out — " For Christ's sake spare 

them, Lord!" 
When sung the sweetest voice, I ever heard — 
** Dost think my love for them is less than 

thine?" 

DIURNAL MOTION 
He lets one half the earth be bright, 

The rest in darkness keep — 
He gives his life to those in light 

And to the darkling sleep; 

That those, who see, may soon be blind, 
That blind may see the skies — 

The risen may lie down behind. 
That those, who sleep, may rise ! 



Crutb 5 

LIFE IN DEATH 

The sea is calm ; the holy night 
Withholds the morning harmonies — 
And with a sure, exultant light 
The world is watched by Angels' eyes ! 

The sea is calm ; and not a sound 
Awakes a wave in slumber's spell — 
But oh ! I feel, my Soul unbound, 
God is at work ! and all is well ! 

THE MARCH OF STARS 

Triumphant march the golden stars. 

Their hymns of battle singing — 
The wheels of fire upon their cars, 

And all their armor ringing ; 
Up mounts of night, through sun-stained bars 

Then cloudy oceans flinging — 
Triumphant march the golden stars, 

Towards His conquest swinging! 

No lights outlast, no thunders blast 

From Hell's tremendous regions — 
No closing seas of sunset past 

Have cleft their perfect legions ; 
Though down, among the matchless wars, 

A comet ride, returning — 
Triumphant march the golden stars. 

Earths, earths for God, still earning! 



Cbrougb Dust to Light 



UNFORGIVENESS 

I LOVE the way they bury the dead, 

Their faces free to Heaven — 
Washed in the dewy light, and sped 

Through fire to fragrance even! 

But there was one, who prayed to lie 
Face downwards — for God never 

Had turned His face to him — and he 
Faces the shades forever! 

GRASS 

Legions of grass, yet not one spear the same — 
Their stirring life withdrawn into themselves, 
Sleeping the summer sleep, that ne'er has 

name — 
Forgetful of the touch of all but elves; 
Becalmed, as noontide seas of starry green. 
When the sweet sun departs, they softly weep — 
Dreaming of worlds, that we have never seen, 
Forsaken worlds, that change the while they 

sleep ; 
Legions of grass, with magic powers untried. 
And stranger grasses waiting in the sea — 
Each drawn into the dream, he locks inside — 
Wakened by winter's winds, to march and eye 

Each other in a world, to them, I trow. 

Paradise lost, but all around them now! 



Crutb 

GOD'S HOUR-GLASS 

Man is the Hour-glass of God — 
And, grain by grain, his being flows 
Out of the globe of surface shows 

Into the globe below the sod: 

Clear of the sunken sands of strife, 
God turns below the Body's bowl — 
And so upturns Man's crystal Soul 

Brimmed with the golden grains of life ! 



POETRY 

Look round thee ! Everything upon the sod. 
The unheard things, thou hast so often seen. 
Whose sounds are like a symphony serene. 
Is poetry, the common speech of God: 
The stones, o'er which thou hast so hasty trod. 
Are periods, that in them little mean 
But for the flowers they are set between — 
And all keep time to the Composer's rod! 

So Poets are his favorites, for they 
Appreciate and have his songs by heart — 
Therefore beside his throne such courtiers stay ; 
Just to repeat his songs, have Poets given 
Their lives and loves, and losing all have aye 
Risen most lightly to the rarest Heaven! 



8 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

DEATH IN CHURCH 

Though in the church, as one interred, 
Mine eyes were sealed with shadow — 

I never heard so sweet a bird. 
Beyond so bright a window — 

I never saw, like one at night. 
Till, in the tomb-like door, 

I found the whole world in the light 
I loved, so long before! 



ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
How lovely are the stars, when bravely bright 
Each — like a sweet and sanctimonious nun, 
Bent on her righteous way — doth softly run 
Visiting, through the poverty of night: 
But though immortal and of constant light. 
Yet, when their mission beautiful is done, 
Clustered behind the radiance of One, 
They seem to vanish from the human sight! 

O dear departed Souls ! though mortal eye 
No longer see you shining in the sky. 
As when you lit the darkness of our dream — 
Dissolved in Heaven's all-embracing day. 
You do but hide in God your golden gleam 
And live to shower love, though far away! 



Crutb 9 



MY OCEAN 

My waves are breaking on distant shores — 
In beautiful lonely lights unseen — 
Strange and still, golden and green, 

Where billows roll melodious roars 
And only my Soul has been! 

My waves are breaking on distant shores — 
And deep in my heart pink corals grow 
And phantom monsters swim to and fro 

Under the old ideal Azores, 
Stars of my ocean O! 

My waves are breaking on distant shores — 
And the fishermen sail about on me. 
And some draw food, and some no good — 

Beware ! light barque, of the darkling scars — 
For I am an old and beautiful sea. 
An old and beautiful sea! 

FORGIVEN 

Beside the surf I soon espied 
A little castle, made of sand, 
That seemed, with what conceit, to stand 

Unmindful of the coming tide: 

I watched the artless work of Man 

Be gently buried by the sea; 

And thanked God for the child in me — 
That I should end, as I began ! 



10 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

MUSIC GOING HOME 

The vale is crowding up with stars, 
And I am stealing home — 

While everywhere the chirps and chirrs 
From secret cellars come! 

The dusk is busy with applause, 
The crickets most rejoice — 

And everything, that had to pause, 
Has found a cheering voice! 

Oh! have I really come so near 
The risen shades of things — 

So near the spirits, that I hear 
The music of their wings ! 



SHIELDED 
I BLEW the candle out. 
And I was in the night — 
With one poor little light 
Died all that was about ! 

I felt, how in my heart 

The light of life, my love, 
At one breath from above 

Would flutter, and depart! 



Zvuth n 

TRANSCENDENT REALITY 

In the bosom of a cloud 
I found a star! 

Was it Joy in Sorrow's shroud — 
Peace in War — 
Love in Life — 
The Soul Avowed ? 
Greater far — 
In the bosom of a cloud 
I found a star! 

THE THREE SILENCES 

Three silences there are, and only three: 
The first is where no tongue hath ever been — 
He is the phantom No-one, lurking in 
Whole polar regions — sing, and he will flee! 
The second is where tongue was wont to be — 
A harmless ghost, this fair old man is seen 
Hiding amid the ruin's silvery green. 
Smiling in tears o'er sweet, dead Memory! 

The third is where tongue is, but holdeth peace- 
He dwelleth in us, here and 'neath the sod, 
And terrifieth, for He judgeth all; 
Such is the brooding silence of the Soul — 
Such is the boding silence of our God : 
Oh! pray these silences shall some day cease! 



12 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A BIRD'S MESSAGE 

"To ME — for me — to me — for me," 
The meadow warbler sings; 

"To me — for me — to me — for me," 
The hearty meadow rings! 

Have I no echo to the song — 
Not any note of praise? — 

He bids me but to linger long, 
Delighted all my days ! 

He bids me, to allow my land 
Was made in love for me: 

I hear, sweet bird, I understand — 
"To me — for me — to me!" 



SURFEIT 

Who sees the glory of the sun, 

Till he is almost gone — 
Who is awake, to gaze upon 

The splendor of his dawn ! 

Alas ! how much we miss of life — 

How little we behold. 
Who, in the noon's too sunny strife,. 

Were blinded by its gold ! 



Zvuth 13 



TO ONE DEPARTED 

A SLUMBER sank, like gentle rain. 
Upon her parching soul — 

And, healing all the olden pain, 
It made her beauty whole ! 

How could she smile, before she trod 
Upon her starry sphere — 

Did she not see the face of God, 
Or feel that He was near ! 



2. 

Oh ! Death serene — Hast thou no pain. 

No fear to be oppressed? 
How sweet a smile ! Is thy head lain 

Upon thy Lover's breast? 
Oh! why that smile? Hast thou then seen 

The vision of thy God — 
Or read, upon thy star serene, 

"No Heart Shall Be Downtrod ! " 



3. 

So Angel-like in death. 

So lovely and so light — 

God must have sealed her breath, 

By kissing her "Good Night" ! 



14 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE BROOK 
'Tis always still, this holy dell, 

'Tis always sombre here — 
But the little brook, he singeth well 

And sparkleth very clear! 

He doth not care ! he doth not care 
For stick, or stone, or bed O — 

He lets God lead him anywhere, 
A singer in the shadow — 

He lets God lead him anywhere. 
So happy e'er he dieth ne'er — 
And maketh his way most fair, 

To run out on the meadow, 
meadow, 

To run out on the meadow! 

IN DARKNESS 

My star, all day so hidden, 
To-night is shining free — 
No more am I forbidden 
My Brother-stars to see; 

But now I gaze around me. 
Enthroned within a dream, 
To find the rest have found me 
To be the star I seem! 



Crutb 15 

WEDDED 

Two Souls, that may not meet, 

But make a wider line 
O'er seas, the Saviour's feet 

Have trod to marriage wine: 

Earth's Parallels — too even 
To cross, or meet to sever — 

Yet, being one in Heaven, 
With closer lives forever ! 



RAINDROPS ON THE LAKE 

Like Raindrops, dancing on a dreamy lake, 
Our souls — that were upgathered in the clouds. 
Even as dust in tears — freshly awake 
All of the waters round, each one enshrouds: 
Then, rising quick to fullest height, some fall 
And, spread out, grow invisibly as breath — 
But true souls blow to bubbles bright, which all 
Have complements beneath the surface, death : 
Self-centered rings, of Sense and Action, sends 
Each soul, but to embrace and influence far, 
Until, its task fulfilled, the storming ends — 
It sinks to sleep upon a silvery bar — 

Where, though in dimness long, it is not gone. 
Nor e'er destroyed — but, dreaming, all in 
one! 



16 Cbrough Dust to Light 

MY SOUL 

I'll be myself some day — 
Some day 
I'll be the way 

I ought to be! 

All that I should be, 
Would be— 
All that I say 

I could be — 
All that I may, 
The true me! 

Somehow, sometime, someplace, 

God's grace 

Shall show my face. 
As eve a star ! 

On high, 'mid all our host- 
Not lost, 

Dimmed in the daylight race, 
Not crossed — 

My star in place 
Forever ! 

TRANSUBSTANTIATION 

Life eats the fruits of life — 
And this is death — but then. 
Transformed beyond belief, 
The fruit is life again ! 



Zvuth 17 

IF WE BUT KNEW 

How many lips would kiss, 

If we but knew — 
How many hearts in bliss, 

If we but knew! 
The apple-blossoms come and go — 
How many fall, how few may blow, 
And oh ! how red the apples grow. 

How few — how few ! 

Few hearts need love alone. 

If we but knew — 
And none were made to moan, 

If we but knew! 
But many a song is sung unheard. 
And many a fire dies unstirred — 
Yet Heaven would open to the word, 

If we but knew! 

SHADOWS OF IMMORTALITY 

While above me spreads thy shadow, 

Still thou livest, lost in light — 
While about me rings thine echo, 

Still thou singest, o'er the night : 

That a lark in sun is singing. 

Show the notes, he rains beneath — 

That a Soul with God is winging. 
Shows her cast-off shadow, death! 



18 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE SUN 
Who can brook the sun — 
Double sun-spots rise; 
All I see of death 
Is two cinder eyes ! 

So, is death a sun — 
Very light and life? 
Death itself must be 
Immortality ! 

CONCERNING A THING IN WHICH WE 

FEEL SOME HIDDEN WANT 
O PHILOSOPHIC bubbles in the blue — 
(Most too symmetrical to be of Man) 
Floating, with little rainbows, o'er the span 
And fainter, fainter chiming, coldly true — 
In vain my groping ear has tried to woo 
A solace from your unimpassioned ring — 
Ye bright notes of a statue, could it sing. 
Ye break upon my heart, a chilly dew! 

Away ! ye heartless spheres of Music Still, 
Too highly pitched for mortal ear to thrill — 
Ye borrow beauty from a higher light: 
Strike forth! the singing sparks, that kindle 

might. 
The martial music of undaunted will 
And love triumphant — comets of the night! 



Zruth 19 

GOD THE MARTYR 

I, WHO have loved so many, 

As many as I could see, 
Nor held my love from any — 

Ah, woe! ah, woe is me! 

And that is why, whene'er I try 

To think of God above, 
With agony I scarce can cry — 

For he — for he is Love! 

CHANGE 

Let us have change forever! 

We hail it, sad or sweet — 
That joys nor woes will ever 

Lie long beneath our feet! 
Though Change but changeth never, 

He changeth e'er the chains — 
That Life from death may sever. 

Till but his Soul remains ! 

Up dawn ! and send our onset. 

Like sunbeams, on the plain — 
Or fall! thy dying sunset 

But leads us home again ! 
Let come the fleet to-morrows. 

Godspeed the days that be — 
For may both lights and shadows 

Forever set us free! 



20 Chrough Oust to Light 

LIFE FROM LOVE 

As God begot in Love, his wife, 
A Child Divine, a Son of Life — 
To live and to be sacrificed — 
All Men beget in Love their Christ'. 

For Life is born of Love alone — 
And Life in Love begets a Son, 
His Soul re-born, Himself to be 
Love's life. Life's immortality! 

YOUTH AND MAIDENHOOD 

Upon the mount he stands, the perfect Youth, 
Splendor on every inch and pride his spine — 
Supreme, he sweeps the ocean all supine, 
His spreading cohquest — as he were, in truth, 
The Dawn, the Dawn, whose eye, with forge- 
like breath. 
Scatters the Hosts of Darkness! No decline 
Mars that majestic Soul, that Dawn divine — 
As it ascends, it triumphs over death! 
And she, the perfect Maid — she leans on him, 
As sweetness clothes her, like a satin dress — 
Gazing with sunbeams, clouds make soft and 

dim. 
Not down, but up, for He her conquest is ; 
Ah! She is Sunset, in her meltingness, 
A pearl, that melts below the world's red brim! 



Crutb 21 

BIRDS 

O DAINTY bird, the daisies heard, 

Why art thou sitting there, 
When summer aye has gone away 

And left thy home so bare; 
The birds have flown, the breezes moan, 

The snow is everywhere, 
And yonder sun will soon be down — 

Yet still thou sittest there! 



Come! little bird — my room is warm. 

My hand shall thaw thy feet — 
Come, fly in free! Come perch on me, 

And pick at what I eat! 
The fire dances on the hearth — 

We'll have a meet most rare — 
For thou shalt sing to me of earth, 

When all the earth was fair ! 

Alas ! wee bird, and hast thou flown ? 

Ah! why dost thou not know, 
That I would bring thee to thine own, 

Because I love thee so! 
Ah, me! so near, and yet so far — 

Poor silly bird, I see, 
The closer Him, who lit my star, 

The more am I like thee! 



22 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD 
I SEE the Dead! I see the Dead — 

The Living are unseen; 
I see the spectrum overhead, 

But not the drops between! 

I see what faces pass me by — 
The birds, the beasts, the whole, 

Yes ! even my fair Love — but I 
Have never seen a Soul! 



NEW LIFE 

Atlantic City! What a piebald show 
Is hung upon the mind — yet there I stand, 
Forgetting all, to see upon the strand 
Four Indians — 'tis not four lives ago: 
What lies behind, I do not seem to know — 
Wide marshes, far low woods, a boundless land 
Untrod by White or Black ! But hush ! the band 
See something white, at sea, it seems to grow! 

O monstrous Change! Undreamt Futurity! 
That little ship! and then this seething life 
Covering all — so very suddenly? 
O Ship ahoy ! Whose flag is that, I see — 
What crew, so potent to o'erspread this strife? 
It comes ! Behold ! my Soul, the life to be ! 



Crutb 2S 

RESURRECTION 

Up from the sick-bed, out in the world, 
Everywhere new and dew-impearled — 
Ah God! how vainly I once drew breath! 
Can it be like this after death? 



THE LIFE OF THE DEW 

Skyward, from the surging ocean. 
See! the sun a dewdrop bears, 

Where the winds, in light commotion, 
Waft it upward everywheres — 

Till the lonely, little prism 
Falling, falling — finds repose 

Folded in the fragrant bosom 
Of a red, madonna-rose: 

Barely in the Dewdrop's prison 
Have the stars of Heaven burned, 

Than the Dew again hath risen 
And his fires, freed, returned! 

So, from sea to sky to flower 

And anon to sky again, 
Dewdrops fall and rise forever — 

Even as the Souls of Men! 



24 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE UNDYING TRUTH 

Not those, who lie, may suffer 
As He, who bore his cross — 

But he, who is Truth's lover, 
May help Him, to his loss: 

Behold! two Lies, both lying 
Beside immortal Youth — 

Both crucified, both dying — 
But oh! their centre. Truth! 



LOVE AND GROWTH 

The dust is one, no dreaming can 
Divide the mote from mote — 

Children are still in love, but Man 
In many clouds must float: 

For lonelier as we older grow. 

We grow by separation — 
Till heart from heart, in tombs apart, 

Return to one salvation — 

Grown too apart, for heart to heart, 
From men we must be children — 

We must go downward, once again — 
But oh! that will be heaven! 



Crutb 25 

GHOSTS 

Holding a shell, to kiss mine ear, 

In its forsaken heart I hear 

The strange, eventful whispers of the sea! 

So, in the finite thing, 
The shadows of infinity 
Still sing ! 

THE SOUL'S VOICE 

Her voice was like a violin, 

More mellow with the years — 
And yet it never was a thing 

Of human hopes and fears ; 
Her voice was like a violin — 

And yet I never know 
Whether I ever heard her sing, 

Or was it long ago? 

WE SEE TOO LATE 

How much we see of dying, 

How little of our growth; 
We find we youths were lying 

On flower-beds of sloth — 
Our eyelids vainly trying 

To rise on Childhood's lawn, 
Where flames of sunset flying 

Are all is left of dawn ! 



26 Cbrough Dust to Light 

BY THE SEA 

I WENT down to the seashore, 
And I said to the sea — 

Why dost thou keep on? 
And the sea answered — 

"Why should I cease?" 

And I was silent: 
But then I answered — 

Is not perfect peace 

Better than vain endeavor? 

Then the sea arose, and saith — 

"Why dost thou name my struggle vain? 

Hast stood by the sea in earliest times. 

Or watched the depths of the sea, 

Or the shores thereof? 
Therefore be silent, 
For it behooves thee well ! " 

A SAILOR'S KNOT 
If Thou and I both love the sea. 
We love each other: 
What I love is a part of me. 
What Thou lov'st is the heart of thee — 
If they are one, then Lovers we; 
Thus I uncover — 
If Thou and I both love the sea, 
We love each other ! 



€rutb 27 

HEAVEN 

When I wonder, like a child, 
Earth is heavenly; 
Earth will not again be wild, 
Till we children be! 

So the Poet, he will know that — ■■ 
Like his Christ-child, Love — 
Earth is swung, so he can see. 
From the Tree above! 

When shall all be fair and wild? 
When ye wonder, like a child! 
Children of the dust are we — 
Death will make a child of me! 



LIFE 

The world Is I, and all its history 

Is played, for Heaven's court, upon my soul- 

Not only as my past, but every day 

A new interpretation of the whole! 

THE WRITING AND THE READING 

How rapidly, when I am dead. 
My careful Life can all be read — 
The drama of a century 
Is but a sentence to his eye! 



28 Chrougb Dust to Light 

WONDER 

Unless ye wonder, in simplicity, 

No more shall any land be fair and wild — 

Unless ye wonder, like a little child, 

Verily Earth shall not be heavenly; 

Unless in each its miracle ye see, 

Not to the truth shall ye be reconciled — 

Unless ye see its beauty undefiled. 

Inviolate, God to you shall not be! 

For he who hath no wonder in his heart, 
No simple sight of God — as children have, 
As poets, and as little saviour Love — 
Shall not see Earth is swung from Heaven 

above. 
Not being godly, nor a mirror, save 
But for a moment, ere his life depart ! 

SIGNAL FIRES 

Signal fires from the stars 

Of thine eyes do I behold — 

On the darkness, signs of gold — 

On the silence, golden bars ! 

Is it love, or is it woe? 

Speak! can we be lovers never? 

Speak! before we part forever — 
On my star must ever go! 



Crutb 29 

MINE 

Whate'er I see 
Is a part of me — 

Fly ! bird, to Heaven's goal — 
My heart goes with you 
Over the rainbow, 

That shines with all my soul! 
Bear me above 
The hills, I love, 

And over the sunny vales — 
For I fain would see 
What belongs to me. 

Ere the dear, old daylight pales ! 

A FOSSIL 

Oh ! SEE this fairy fossil ; 
I feel — as fancies jostle — 

As when, above a mummy. 

The Soul beholds his body! 

Through myriads of ages — 

By unremembered stages. 

But oft recalled by Nature — 
I reached my present stature; 

For there will come a time, when 
I fold my form, sublime then, 

A fossil in my palm — 

Or God's — for such I am! 



30 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

GOD'S SHIELD 

Blazoned upon God's shield, the sun, 
Over his golden sword, 
Seems now to flash, now melt thereon 
The Watchword of the Lord! 

The Word is on that shield — but one, 

Yet every shake it saith. 

As of a Trinity begun, 

Now "Love"— now "Life"— now "Death!" 



THE JUDGE 

AN IMPROMPTU 

Who is the Judge, above this argument. 
Severing false and true, when two men speak— 
Who is it that, when you or I invent, 
Seems to approve what others call a freak? 
He is not you, nor I, nor other men — 
Ever unseen, and yet how truly felt — 
But yet he seems to be, as we have been 
Before some splendid sight, or happy lilt! 
Perhaps it is the Soul of us decides 
On everything around it, in our breast 
Sitting in judgment, like the star that bides 
Above the ancient battle in the west — 

But, whereso'er he is, I oft have known 
A God, that I could almost call my own ! 



Crutb 31 

FRAGMENTS OF ETERNITY 

Each time I stop, beside the way, 
With Time himself to stay — 
The sights, I barely see. 
Seem fragments of Eternity! 

THE NEVER-PRESENT PRESENT 

We live where we are not — 
Ever some other spot 

Is gleaming round us; 
The Future and the Past 
Are with us to the last, 

The lands that bound us ! 

The Present lives through them — 
Upon its slender stem 

Our senses even 
Spend all their fragrant worth 
In gazing back at Earth 

And up at Heaven! 

CHANGE 

How seldom, in my vessel's mast, 

I spy its spirits strange — 
The What-it-was through all the past, 
Or What-it-will-be to the last. 

Nor can I see it change ! 



32 Through Dust to Light 

THE OPAL HEART 

The light, that once was one, 
Opened through the opal, 
Breaks in seven flames. 
Playing every tone: 

When the light is gone, 
Gone, too, is the opal: 

When a blow reclaims 
All His rainbow flashes. 
She returns to ashes; 
Yet, though she be shattered, 
All the flames. He scattered. 
Quite unscathed return. 
Whence they came, as one! 

HOPE 
I LOVE the Children — for I ken, 
Children are the Hopes of Men ! 
Only the Hopes ? Adieu ! but then, 
I have a Grandson—Hope again ! 

ELECTRICITY 

If electricity is life, 

And too much electricity is death — 

Then to be strong is all this strife. 

To stand the shock of that diviner breath! 



Crutb 83 

A BRIGHT OLD SOUL 

A BRIGHT old Soul 

Through whom the beauties of his birth 
Still glow, like embers on the hearth — 
Good Cheer to all! 

Fantastic Shadows round him dance, 

That but enhance 

A face so bright, 
As he doth pass — out of the night! 

ON PRIDE 

How long, O petty Man, how long wilt thou 
Strut, almost blind, upon this heavenly way — 
Irreverent of what the flowers say 
And passing all these shrines without a bow! 
Preposterous it is, proud weaklings, how 
You disregard the power of God's sway — 
What? fallen, even his helping hand would 

stay — 
And, questioned, thrice his friendship disavow! 

Come out with me to the meridian. 
And view the solar system — grains of sand! 
Tossed in the air from God's enfolding hand — 
Look! What is that, revolving in the blue. 
Small as a mote within the sky? Oh, Man! 
Is THAT your mighty world! And where are 
you? 



34 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE CALL 

Tap, tap, tap upon the heart 
On the heart of Youth — 
"Let me in !" says Truth ; 

Rise! ere she depart: 

Tap, tap, tap upon the heart — 
'Tis the pulse of Time, 
Truth's eternal rhyme, 

Ere thou wilt upstart! 



Good 



JOY FROM SORROW 
I BORROW joy from sorrow, 
A rainbow from the rain — 
If life were not in shadow, 
My star would shine in vain! 

THE BRAKE 

How unapparently would whirl 
The Wheel of Time, the melting sky, 
But for the big black brakes, that hurl 
The stars on high ! 

And so my time — how smooth and swift 
My soul would spin, but for the brake — 
But oh ! stopped soul, the fount you lift, 
The stars you make! 

I AM FOR YOU 
Know! Anyone at work, at play, at rest, 
The meanest occupation, or the best — 
No matter who — 
I am for you ! 

ARTISTS 

I AM the artist of my Soul ; 
May Love, behind me, lend me might 
With Death's charcoal to outline all — 
With shadows, features of the light ! 



38 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

STRANGERS 

They knew Him not! — Ah! would I know, 

Were He to come again? 
Indeed, He would not leave us so — 

He must be among Men ! 

Everyman shall be my guest — 

For it well may be, 
Hidden in some stranger's breast, 

Christ is come to me ! 

THE GOOD IN WOE 

Sorrows besiege the heart, to free the Soul; 
Bolder the breach, the more eternal light 
Breaks through the heart — where, having 

dreamed all night, 
The Soul is woken with a kiss, her toll; 
Sorrows besiege the heart, to take the Soul — 
First tapping gently, then, with greater might. 
Battering down each obstacle in sight. 
Until, fast through the heart, the sunbeams roll ! 

Had we no woes, where had we victory; 
Untried, how can we deem ourselves so bold, 
That we can face our God and his decree! 
Our claim to live again is from the strife. 
For Souls grow warmer as their flesh grows 

cold — 
And Death inflicts no greater wound than Life ! 



6ood 39 

THE LIGHT-HOUSE 

'Mid foaming billows, reared on high 
The tall, white Light-house stands — 

And flings his golden shafts, that fly 
To distant silver strands ! 

Oh! how his isle, with jagged rocks 

Like battle-axes, gleams — 
That slash the waves' assailing shocks 

And leer in wet moonbeams! 

On that lone head the midnight storm 

Showers unceasing hail — 
While billows bound upon his form, 

Lashed onward by the gale; 

But none can bend his slender stem, 

That flower of the sea — 
No wave can reach his diadem, 

Aflame with golden glee — 

His tongue of flame its message tells. 

Despite the roars of night — 
As, o'er yon clanging buoy-bells. 

His look outspeaks the light! 

Alone the hero backward hurls 
Each foe, each wave on wave — 

Surrounded, yet undaunted, whirls 
Defiance to the grave — 



40 Chrougb Dust to Light 

No ringing voice, no helping hand 

Is there to cheer him on — 
Firm-footed on his star of land, 

Alone his battle's won: 

Yet, like a pack of hungry wolves 

About their victim treed. 
The billows lash and tear and gnash, 

Until their white fangs bleed: 

For, as the brave Horatius fought 

His overwhelming foes, 
So stands the Light-house, freely caught 

Upon his isle of woes — 

Foregoing friends and joy and life, 

To light the stormy lea. 
In lone, heroic, ceaseless strife 

To save a Soul at sea! 

THE CROWN OF STRIFE 

Oh, look ! 'tis Christ, that bears his cross. 

He strove to be a god — 
He gave his soul to save thy soul — 

By hundreds now downtrod! 

Oh, look! 'tis Christ, borne by his cross! 

What has he lost — his life? 
That failure is a god's success. 

For see his crown — 'tis Strife! 



Good 41 

CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART 

Sorrow lies in the manger of my heart, 
The hope of glory and the means of grace — 
As Purity, his mother, shows his face, 
Wisdom his fairest joys would fain impart: 
How near him stands the humblest of the mart, 
The sorry ass, still with his fallen trace — 
Whom Sorrow's little arms would fain embrace. 
Making him great, beyond the touch of Art ! 

Who knows where stands the heart, that shelters 

Christ— 
Whose but an Angel's starry eye divines 
Beneath the earth the heavenly sun that shines ? 
I bare my head before the humblest cot — 
Lest, hidden there, for me long sacrificed, 
I pass my Saviour's home, yet know it not! 

TO I. H. 

Light as a feather from God's wing. 
Thy Soul is blown but higher — 

And fallen, where the flood-gates swing. 
It rides the tides like fire — 

Oh! how it floats upon the storm, 

Dances over the fall ! 
God caught thee up, but to thy form 

There clung no tear at all! 



42 Cbrough Dust to Light 

THE ASS 
The ass's head is sunken low. 

His eyes are almost closed — 
He dreams, perhaps, of long ago, 

When first his dam he nosed — 

He dreams, perhaps, of fields and fords 
And milk, the babe would draw — 

But now his bed is made of boards, 
His food his bedding straw! 

And should he cry, a little while, 
For hunger, thirst, or fear — 

A hundred happy lips would smile, 
A hundred throats would jeer! 

No sound comes from the tired heart — 

No struggle with its load — 
No friendly voice arrests the mart 

With, "Drop that bloody goad !" 

No loving hand is on his neck — 

No shoulder at the wheel ! 
He falls! — Thank God! For who will reck 

That sorry coat could feel! 

The humblest heart in all the throng — 

The helper of us all — 
The hero, with a jester's song. 

Must give his heart and fall — 



Good 43 

Not crowned with flowers from his wood, 
But seem — as shunned, downtrod, 

Most scorned by those, he does most good — 
Forgotten by his God! 

And he who gave, one Christmas morn, 

The manger in his stall — 
The Bearer of the Lord — has borne 

The saddest life of all! 

AT SEA 

Hurried along by what imperious wind. 
Shouldered by some strange surge of Destiny — 
Like derelicts, adrift upon the sea. 
Mayhap on sand to shelve, or rock to grind — 
We put for anywhere, too much resigned 
To patch the brave, torn sails of Liberty, 
Pointing toward some port, before we lie 
Becalmed, with cargoes due to Humankind! 

Awake! Man, take the tiller! Time and space 
Are but a fog, that swathes the impending 

shore — 
My God ! and wilt thou drown, forevermore. 
On yonder hissing scar, in such disgrace — 
Or steer, with firm hand, to the beaching place? 
The rocks ! — May God have mercy ! — Still 

they snore ! 



44 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE EVERGREENS IN SNOW 

The Forest sleeps beneath her quilt of snow — 
How strangely beautiful, how soft and white; 
Who could have thought, his boyhood Love 

could grow 
So fair, he should not know her over night! 
Hush! She is quite enchanted! — Steal in — see 
Screen beyond screen of cloudy lace enorme: 
Winter built this, though not with ivory — 
Robing the details, to reveal the form! 
But more surprise awaits thee! Peer inside 
This Christmas-tree, that seems of sugar 

made — 
Although the snow has bowed down all its pride, 
'Tis green within — a little summer glade — 

Oh, lovely sight! when years the beauty 
screen. 

To find the aged heart an evergreen! 

LOVE FROM SORROW 
Love owes his life to sorrow — 

But for the night's allay, 
The love, that dawns to-morrow. 

Would be an ash to-day ! 

The rose is burnt — a burst of rain 
And she is bright and soft again — 

Bright as my love — ah! but for woe, 
Joy would have burnt it, long ago! 



Good 45 



LABOR: A VESPER 

Labor serveth God, 
Be it given — 
Sweat upon the sod 
Is from Heaven! 

Therefore, when my plough 
Leaves the lea, 
Dew, upon my brow, 
Blesseth me! 



ON RECEIPT OF THE SONNET ON HIS 
BLINDNESS 

So ! Thou art blind ! — Ah ! that is but as Love — 
Blind to the face, but not the heart of things — • 
For still thy chalice of imaginings 
Glows with thy pure communion above ! 
This ! And thou blind ? Nay ! I know well enough 
That one is never blind, the while he sings — 
E'en now I see, above thy folding wings. 
The peace of God, descending like a dove! 

Blind ? But they all are blind, who love us best — 
They, who alone see God above their rest; 
And Thou, yea ! thou hast seen before thy time ! 
Thy lips have touched my lids — I see! I see 
Thee, standing on the dawning mount sublime — 
O Milton ! Can'st thou reach thy hand to me ? 



46 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

YOUTH 

You stand, Youth, on the cross-roads — 

There is no time to spare! 
The road you came is closed to you — 

The middle ends nowhere! 

Come I choose the right way, or the left^^ 

The sign-post's arms still tell, 
A thousand miles to Heaven — 

A half a mile to Hell! 

A VISION OF CONSCIENCE 

I SEE a sheet of sun, a blinding light — 
'Tis growing smaller, now more solid — it 
Is now a golden throne, where still doth sit 
A King — his hand suspends the day and night ! 
I see a man before him, who, in height. 
In bristling hair, low brow, hard jaw, is fit 
To be an ape! I see his teeth, and yet 
Blood's on his hands! — Now he dissolves from 
sight ! 

How still the sunlit King sits on his throne—- 
Listen ! I hear a step ! There comes alone 
A man in raiment white, with quiet tread: 
His blue eyes meet the King's, his bosom throbs. 
He falls and hides his face, shaken with sobs — 
Yet, all the while, an halo crowns his head ! 



Good 47 

SONGS FROM A GARDEN 

I. BREAKING 
So MANY Hearts and seeds, 

Alike for Sowing's sake, 
And yet — what flowers, what weeds — 

How differently they Break! 

II. ROSES AND THORNS 
Rose-bush! For many woes, 

I may not wisely mourn — ? 
I see, the sweetest rose 

Must blossom from a Thorn ! 

III. FLOWERS FROM DUST 
Out of the dust spring flowers — 

Out of the midnight morn — 
Out of my old, dark hours 

Beauty may be born I 

IV. EARTH AND DEW 
Were I not buried in the earth, 

My Soul could never grow — 
My Soul could have no higher birth, 

Were I not born below! 

The little flower, near that nest. 
Would not be half so dear — 



48 Chrougb Dust to Light 

Were she not clasping, to her breast, 
So heavenly a tear! 

V. FLOWER AND STAR 
I love a little flower, 

Far more than any star — '- 
She has so little power, 

Nor does she live afar: 

For Love to me is even — 

Yes ! like herself — more sweet 

Not shining down, from Heaven, 
But upward, at my feet : 

Oh ! Love is not a star, ablaze 
Above the poor, at night — 

But brave as this young rose, to raise 
Her face, through dust to light! 

VL A FLOWER 

Not for herself, this flower — ^ 
She looks at me with love — 

Trying, with all her power, 
To lift her face above! 

O happy little soul. 

So perfect from thy birth — 
Love is, however small. 

The sweetest thing on earth ! 



Good 49 



VII. FLOWER OF LIFE 
Bravest of all the brave, 

Beautiful Flower — 
Bright by the darkling grave 

Blooming thine hour — 
Oh! how thy heart, most high, 
Dauntless, stands forth to die. 
Far from a friendly eye. 

Poorest in power! 



Helpless, a slave to Death, 

In his arms failing, 
Breath'st thou thy last sweet breath, 

Shivering, paling — 
Fair, with thy dewy eyes 
Fixed on the happy skies. 
Where not a cloud replies, 

Heedlessly sailing ! 

Hail ! little Heart-of-gold, 

Stemming the strife — 
Hail to thee! Sweet-of-old, 

Worthy God's wife — 
Still on the waste of years. 
Star thou our darkest fears. 
Smiling through all thy tears — 

Flower of Life! 



50 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

VIII. THE BRAVERY OF FLOWERS 
How brave ye bloom, dear flowers, 

Though no one see, nor love you — • 
Though fair, too fair for powers 

To stem the blast above you ! 

Lives, dear Lives in hiding — 
Helpless, yet brave and sweet — 

1 smell your incense, rising 
From Death's empurpled feet! 

IX. TO DAISY 
Little sister, wilt thou be 
Like the daisy, under thee — 
Keep thine eye upon the sky. 

Where such stars are given; 
Daisies cannot ever see 
Till their golden hearts are free — 
Never fly upon the lea. 

Lift they not to Heaven! 

Then, if thou would'st bloom, thou must 
Rise from darkness and from dust — 
Till thy lovely head is thrust, 

Star-like, o'er the sod; 
For, along the field, will pass 
One, who looks for loveliness — 
One, who loves a little lass ! 

Is it me — or God? 



Good 51 

X. A LEGEND OF FLOWERS 
When Earth was like a star, with tongues of 

flame — 
Then spake the Lord, and from his eyes the 

dew 
Fell on her face, like words both kind and true, 
The tears, that should remind us of his name ; 
For each a timeless jewel then became. 
In taking from its meaning form and hue — 
Bits of a broken rainbow — gems, that knew 
Love's light without his heat, nor any blame: 

Now, when each gem was mirroring his wife, 
Their frozen hearts caught fire, brimmed with 

life 
Till gems broke into flowers — white, blue, 

gold — 
Then rubies became roses, sweet of breath; 
Alas ! What burns, burns out — so life brought 

death — 
The flowers died, but rose a thousandfold! 



XL AND SOME FELL UPON STONY PLACES 
I planted upon stony soil 

A rosebud from my heart — 
And, tending it with faithful toil, 

I watched for it to start: 



52 Cbrough Duet to Light 

O barren soil, O thankless toil — 

My little rose no more — 
Where thou wert born is now a thorn, 

I never saw before ! 

XII. THE IVY AND THE WALL 

High, as she hath a guidance and support, 
The Ivy climbs — the Ivy ever slim — 
Clasping the old gray wall, in childish sport. 
As if he needed her to mother him! 
And, with her constant little flutterings, 
Her clapping hands, she seems to make him 

smile. 
Until his hard old heart within him rings — 
Although he looks quite cold and stiff the while ! 
And He ? He loves the ivy ! Do but think 
What he would be without her — worn and gray ! 
And She ? — The world has not a stronger link — 
For she must cling to him, or die away! 

Oh! to be loved and love like that — dear 
wife — 

The Ivy and the Wall of human life ! 

XIII. LOVE AND SORROW 
Love is beautiful in sorrow — 

Violets, her lifted eyes. 
Melting in the midnight, borrow 

Little stars from Paradise! 



6ood 53 

What is fairer than a lily, 

Lonely, praying for the sun? 

Love is fairer than a lily. 

When the day of Love is done! 

Roses wither very early — 

Roses blossom just as soon; 
Tears of dew are, like a rosary, 

Told in Heaven, ere the noon ! 
Who shall keep the vestal fires 

Starring yonder holy height? 
Only Sorrow till to-morrow, 

Only Shadows till the Light! 

XIV. THE DIVINE ROSE-BUSH 
There is a rose-bush waits for thee 

Somewhere — somewhere ! 
And many a thorn protects that tree — 

Take care! Beware! 
But he, who is brave, will try discover 
That bush, though he trudge the whole world 
over! 

For the rose-bush, it hath roses three — 

'Tis rare! 'Tis rare! 
Crimson, snowy, and gold they be-— 

How fair — how fair! 
And if thou would'st own that bush divine. 
Then pluck all three, and the bush is thine! 



54 Cbrough Dust to Light 

For the snowy rose is the stainless mind — 

(Not yet! not yet!) 
And the crimson rose is the heart, that glows- 

But never ! never forget 
To pluck the golden rose of the soul, 
Or lost the bush and alas ! the whole ! 

XV. SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN 

My flower, thou'rt ever a little thing — i 
My love, thou hast few hours; 
In the horizon of a wedding ring 
God has designed his flowers! 

XVI. 'TIS MINE TO SMILE OR MOURN 
There is a woe in every joy — 

In every rose, a tear — 
There's dust upon each butterfly, 

That bursts his prison here: 

But there's a joy in every woe — 

A sap in every thorn — 
A light in every tear — and so 

'Tis mine to smile or mourn ! 

XVII. THE DIVINE DESPAIR 
Oh! little perfect flower. 

Beautiful child of Love — 
I am a sunset Hour, 



Good 55 

Sobbing the dew above — 
Sobbing with heart nigh broken 

Over thy form, too fair, 
The music of loves unspoken. 

The song of a Soul's despair ! 

Far little star of beauty, 

Angel of saintly love! 
If it be Earth's dark duty 

Stars in the sky to prove — 
Oh! be my tears thy dower. 

Tears that we are apart — 
For Thou art a perfect flower, 

And I but a human heart! 

XVIII. A BLUEBELL 
Little bluebell, little bluebell, 
I want to be like thee — 
I want to live out on a cliffy 
Beside the sunny sea; 
How sweet to ring at brush of wing 
And feel it set me free — 
Little bluebell, little bluebell, 
I want to be like thee ! 

Perfect bluebell, simple bluebell. 
Were I as sweet and true. 
The secret beauty of my soul 
Would let all heaven through — 



56 Chrougb Dust to Light 

My Spirit wild would be a child, 
His sacrament the dew — 
And everyone would love me, 
As if I never grew! 

Fairies' chalice, heavenly heart, 
I found, within thy cup, 
A sorrow, wept from Paradise, 
And knelt to kiss it up ; 

miracle most beautiful! 

1 sprang up with a cry — 

For, sweetened in thy honeyed heart, 
The sorrow was a joy! 

Little flower, little martyr, 

I would the world would drain 

The tears, that sweeten in my cup, 

Before they rose again: 

Perhaps thy bloom and faint perfume 

Some Bible shall imbue — 

Flaming flower, little martyr. 

Thy faith thou shalt not rue ! 

Perfect flower, perfect flower, 

As sweet in rain as sun — 

Firm rooted, but above all soil — 

A joy to everyone — 

How beauteously thy Spirit moulds 

The dust, from which we start, 

Now shining through the clouds, that thou 

Drawest from out my heart! 



6ood 57 

Little bluebell, little poet, 

Unto thyself how true — 

What breeze will bear thy brood abroad, 

Where will they blossom, too: 

Little bluebell, little true-tell, 

I wonder could it be — 

That love could make my heart to live, 

By merely loving thee? 



Holy bluebell, fairy church-bell, 
I wonder, dost thou ring 
Over a land, none understand, 
What time the wind doth swing — 
And dost thou call both great and small. 
Though great ones hear thee not. 
The bee to his confessional 
Within that lovely spot? 



Vain Fancy ! beautiful, but vain — 

I know thee, as of old — 

But still believe thou art more sane 

Than any yet hath told — 

My youth is bound to thee, and I 

Will hold thee in my heart — 

But such things are too fair to see, 

Too lovely to impart! 



58 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

But tell me, little bluebell, 

(Thy beauty ringeth true!) 

Thou heavenliest of flowers. 

Bravest and sweetest too — 

Can'st thou, then, let God make thee 

So fully to his will, 

That never breeze can break thee, 

Nor ever showers spill? 



Enough ! I will not pray thee, 
To tell me what I know — 
Thy wisdom will not stay me, 
Although I love thee so ; 
My heart within is like thee. 
For all my body's woe — 
I pray but thou wilt take me 
Wherever thou dost go! 



Little bluebell, little fare-well, 
I would my heart were laid 
Within thy snowy roots' embrace, 
Beneath thy face for shade; 
By thee, my flower soul would rise — 
Two loves, that could not sever — 
Two loves, that make one Paradise 
Forever and forever! 



Good 59 

XIX. THE GARDEN 
Hold not thy garden as a little thing, 
Here is the sky in winter as in spring — 
For it belongs to God, whose Son thou art. 
Tending his garden, as it were thy heart. 
Having the stars for its own counterpart, 
The birds, the brooks, the fields and everything! 

XX. A VIOLET 
O little, saintly flower. 

Mysterious Violet — 
Veiled in an emerald bower, 

With diamonds still wet — 
Thou art a wondrous dower 

From Him, who loves us yet! 

How shadowy, yet glowing — 
How luminous, yet lush! 

What Fairy has been throwing 
Her censer by the bush — 

An amethyst, that blowing 
Took oriental blush.'' 

The Spirit of thy petal. 
That in thy smile I trace — 

(Whose starlight is the metal. 

That knows nor time, nor place) — 

Must curl, ere she may settle, 
So shy is she of grace 1 



60 Chrougb Dust to Light 

Thy heart, a censer golden, 
Is shedding silver rays — 

But, though it may embolden 
Me with desire's craze, 

To thee am I beholden 
For bettering my ways! 

Ah, surely thou art royal, 
Robed in that purple gown ; 

Let him, whose heart is loyal. 
For love of God, kneel down 

And, child-like, to enjoy all 
The good, that He has sown ! 



Thou little piece of heaven. 
With but a star for heart. 

With saddest moonbeams paven 
Around the sweetest part — 

Wept over by leaflets seven — 
Such, Violet, thou art! 



Good 61 

XXI. A ROSEBUD 

Look how the rose, beshadowed by old Fate, 
Shrinks from the touch of her adoring June — 
Seeing him lift her crown of frost, too late, 
And Winter come, to seal it on too soon : 
Look how the tear, that stars her shadowy eye, 
Shoots to the pollen of her golden heart. 
Tempering its star-dust with the salty sea — 
Of dreams the last, of married day the start ! 
But, as the gold arms of her phantom sun 
Gird her with great and ever new delight. 
She spreads her roseleaves, where his blushes 

run. 
Shutting his image in her heart, all night! 
In heaven is the world remembered not, 
Until their saviour. Sorrow, is begot! 

XXII. THE RAIN 

I, THE SUN DRAWING RAIN 

Have you seen the heaven 

Drawing tears from earth .^^ 
They shall soon be given 
Back to her, for mirth: 
Sunshine breaking, 
Flowers waking — 

That is what comes after 
Tears were taken, 
To be shaken 
Into laughter! 



62 Zhvough Dust to Light 

II. THE RAIN 

The rain is the child of sorrows — 
Redemption comes through him! 

Hast thou not seen the willows 
Sparkling in every limb? 

The rain is the child of sorrows — 
Who, after days of joy, 

Comes o'er the burning billows. 
Comes that we may not die! 

After the rain, the earth is 
How fair, how undefiled — 

A virgin still, though birth has 
From Heaven upon her smiled; 

How through her tears she glances, 
Smiling at her mishap — 

As she was she, who dances 
Her Saviour on her lap ! 

But when the cloud has parted. 
The child of sorrow goes — 

More fair than when she started, 
Opens the sparkling rose — 

And, when the cloud has parted 
And child of sorrows gone, 

JFair is the arch, that started 
In triumph to the sun ! 



6ood 63 



III. AFTER THE RAIN 

After rain 
Comes sunshine — 
What was pain 
Is divine; 

After rain, 
See the rose — 
With her woes 
Changed to wine ! 

Did the sky 
Never rain, 
Roses by 
He would drain — 

Did the Soul 
Never cry, 
Soon his bowl 
Would be dry ! 



64 Chrough Dust to Light 

XXIII. AMONG THE DAISIES 
A day far, far away, my Love and I 
By an old fence were gazing o'er the hills — 
Hushed in the singing of the little rills^ 
That ran about our mead so merrily ; 
A sigh of happiness flew softly by 
On windy wings, that set the daisies' frills 
Streaming, till thousands laughed — then, as 

when fills 
The dome with song, the Angel Love stood 

nigh ! 

A thousand suns for me shall never set — 
A thousand maiden daisies heavenward gaze 
In sweetest adoration ; and, when days 
Of desolation draw me round, nor yet 
Shall I refrain to haunt the old sweet ways 
Where myriad daisies shone — nor I regret! 



XXIV. THE STAR IN THE DEW 

The flower dreameth; 
Above her beameth 

Down through the darkness far — 
Though bound apart — 
In her dewdrop heart 

The image of him, her star ! 



6cod 65 

The flower waketh, 
As nurse wind shaketh 

The dew from her dreamy eyes; 
Her love she embraceth, 
But only faceth 

The light of the morning skies ! 

XXV. RED ROSE OR WHITE 
Red rose or white — 
Red rose or white ? 

Give me the red rose, 

Just for to-night ! 

White rose or red — 
White rose or red? 

Give me the white rose, 

Her would I wed! 

XXVI. HEAVEN'S ANSWER 
Earth prayed to Dawn — "Oh ! send me a spark, 

A mirror for thy blushes — 
My heart is withered, I am dark 

As those old briar bushes !" 

It rained — and lo! the rose, like morn. 

Was dawning soft and clear; 
It rained — and every ashen thorn 

Was jeweled with a tear! 



66 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

XXVII. THE BEAUTY OF MORTALITY 

Give me no rose immortal, 
With diamonds for dew, 
Before a golden portal 
At Heaven's bastion blue — 
Give me no rose immortal. 
That ever is the same. 
Colder than Heaven's portal, 
Prouder than lasting fame — 

But oh ! a rose, most human, 
As tender as a dove, 
As beautiful as woman 
And brave and sweet as Love : 
Her little rosebud even, 
That blossomed yesterday — 
More lovely now in Heaven, 
That he could fly away ! 



XXVIII. VERSE WITH FLOWERS 
These children of my garden 
Have left this world of care — 
To blossom at thy bosom 
And fade in Heaven, there ! 



Good 67 

XXIX. A WILD ROSE 

Oh ! fairer than a rose, 
That in my garden grows, 

Dearer than Heaven's starry chalice — 
Lies in the vale below 
A lowly love I know. 

That makes a poor man's home his palace ! 

Not as the lusty rose. 

That some proud lady chose, 

Leaning a-staif, by stone wall sharded — ■ 
That love is wild to-day, 
A rose beside the way. 

Beaten by rain, by few regarded! 

Yet still it blooms and blooms. 
Sending its sweet perfumes 

To all, as homeward they go by it — 
Cheering them on their path, 
To know its dust still hath 

Such flowers of God's love so nigh it! 



68 Cbrougb Duet to Light 

XXX. A BLUE VIOLET 
Pray tell me, little blue-eyed nun, 

Why dost thou kneel in grief — 
When thy sweet life is o'er too soon, 

To mourn each falling leaf? 
Before the frost thy spirit goes — 

But I must live, to see 
The moon of woes display the snows, 

That bury all but me! 



Why art thou cloistered from the blast, 

Nor have to leave thy home — 
When I, before the creaking mast. 

Am driven like the foam? 
Thy dying prayer for Heaven's wine 

Is answered by the dew — 
But I, who pine for springs divine, 

Must search the desert through ! 

May I not dwell, in sweet content, 

Within thy dewy nook. 
Thy cloister fair, where ever chant 

The angels of the brook? 
Thine eyes are bright with dew for me, 

But mine are bright with tears — 
Yet still I hope, to rise, like thee, 

Out of the dust of years ! 



6ood 69 

XXXI. A GOLDEN ROSE 
The rose, that loves her star so — 

The mortal the divine — 
That rose doth like her star grow 

And, like her lover, shine: 

Though sunshine burn at stake, here, 

No shade her star alarms — 
For then his rose shall break, there, 

Out of his golden arms ! 

XXXII. THE COLOR OF FLOWERS 
A flower but reflects His light. 

One of His shades — while all the rest, 

Breathed deep into her billowy breast, 
Fill her with fragrance and delight — 

It is the shade, she loves the best, 
The shade denied her in the night. 
When dews have made her eyes so bright, 

Dreaming of daylight's sweet behest! 

I love the body's vesture, hemmed 

About the soul, that grows so dim — 

In that I walk, with every limb 
By all the joys of day begemmed: 

His sunset, from my bosom's brim. 
Draws seven shades ; tear-diademmed. 
Then, like a flower — were I not stemmed, 

In sleep, my soul would float to Him! 



70 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

XXXIII. TO A ROSE 
Princess Rose, with heart of gold, 
Robed in red — thy soldier Thorn 
Hedge thee from the Fairies bold, 
Hold thee up, to kiss the Morn, 
Who, thy King and Father too. 
Flings thee diamonds of dew! 

Ruby cup, where one dew-pearl 
Melts, like love within my heart — 
Rose, whose burning lips must curl 
In Love's chalice — Rose, who art 
Dawn and sunset to an Elf, 
Drink me dew — I'll drink thyself! 

Oh! I caught thee, maiden wild, 
Playing with the roving wind — 
Truant princess ! like a child 
Swaying, in his arms reclined, 

Though how many blades of grass 
Bow to thee, thou royal Lass! 

Cherub breezes kiss thy cheek, 

Kindling all thy modesty; 

Hark! the feathered angels speak 

Woodland hymns, in praise of thee — 
"Never, never shalt thou die, 
O Madonna of our Joy!" 



Good 71 

Dost thou flirt with butterflies, 

Selling honey — do thy grasses 

Whisper of the breezes lies, 

That they elbow through for kisses? 
Let them 'ware — the arrows fly 
From the bow above thine eye! 

O thou lamp of orient light — 

When is lost that Sinbad, bee — 

Dost thou guide him home at night, 

Like a light-house by a sea ; 
As, against thy rosy glass. 
Do the birds beat on thee, Lass ? 

Never poem's melody 

Hath a sweeter message told — 

Never hath a symphony. 

Woven upon strings of gold, 
Kindled more responsive glows 
Of God's presence, than a rose! 

XXXIV. A ROSE'S HEART 
The rose hath a heart of gold — 

(For the rose must die, too soon) 
And her heart of gold is never old — 

She blooms in the newborn June; 
She blooms in the newborn June 

On the brae of the long, white way — 
For the heart of gold shall bloom, as of old, 

When the rose hath passed away! 



72 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

XXXV. THE BURNING BUSH 
O morning rose! . . . Oh! hush . 
With naked feet I tread, 
To hear — my heart, so red — 
God in the burning bush! 

Hail ! I have heard thy word — 
Hail! I have seen thy law — 
But Lord, of all I saw, 

How can I sing a third ! 



XXXVI. THREE LITTLE BLUEBELLS 
Three little bluebells, in rainy weather, 

Their beads of dew did tell: 
When two or three are gathered together, 

God will not ring their knell! 

XXXVII. FLOWER-BED 

Flower-bed 

Of little graves, 

At each head 

Their little staves ! 

What wilt thou rise.'' 
Let me see — 
"Here lies 
Lily !" 



Good 73 

DAILY THE TRAGEDY DIVINE 
I. SUNSET 
Down the deserted meadows 

Bearing his cross, with blood, 

The sinking sun hath trod, 
Before a mob of shadows — 

Who gathering, growing bolder, 

Now set him on the hill — 

While all the sky grows still 
And all the earth grows colder ! 

II. DAWN 
The cloud is like a stone. 

That, from the tomb of night. 
Now rolls away alone — 

As angels of the light 

Flash out, on either side — 

Frighting the shades, that run 

Like shrunken hordes, to hide 
Before the rising sun! 

THE TUNING 

Joy can spring from sorrow only — 
Who shall sing to me again, 
Sound my heart, when I am lonely, 
Ere the strain, its tuning strain ! 



74 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A PSALM 

God ! On this altar I lay 

A broken and a contrite heart ; 
Pardon of thee I will not pray — 
I know how vile my part ! 

1 hate myself — 
But I love thee; 

Then strike me dead — avenged I'd have thee be 1 

Love ! As a poor man, who loves 

A queen of beauty, goodness, truth- 
Prays but to kneel, nor him hope moves 

To even hope for ruth — 
So, even when 
Reproaching thee, 

1 was thy Lover then, and e'er shall be ! 

God ! Not forgiveness I ask — 

But strength, to smile beneath my woe — 

Time, to construct thy noble task 
And pay the debt, I owe: 

God! if naught 
Will plead for me. 

Hold me not wholly bad, for One loved me! 

KING SORROW 

1 HAVE served Sorrow, as a poor Fool should. 

Turning the other cheek, when blushes fled — 
Turning his royal baitings into good — 

Laughed at his frowns, and crowned his surly 
head ! 



Good 75 

TO ONE WHO COMETH FROM THE 

HOLY LAND 
To One, who cometh from the Holy Land, 
I speak ; and, as I speak, what visions rise, 
Like incense from an ancient sacrifice, 
Spirits of all that great, prophetic band: 
Judea! 'twas thy glory, to command 
The march of all the ages to the skies ; 
Awake Judea! for my blood replies, 
That still I feel the glory of thy handl 

Ages are gone; thy ruins crumbling lie 
Far in the rosy country of the dawn. 
Forsaken by thy people — oh! but why? 
Thou Lily-of-the-field, wert thou, lost gem. 
Borne over oceans, on the wind and sun, 
To be my star, my star of Bethlehem? 

TO ROSE 
My Rose, Thou, who dost restore 

Youth, to my failing sight — 
Virgin, through whom I still adore 

God's sweetness and his light — 

Let fall on me thy latest beams. 

Rose Window of the night — 
Thou cold, sweet Angel of my dreams — 

Where Thou art, all is light! 



76 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

BEFORE THE BROOK 
O PURE and lovely brook, that walks so piously 

along ! 
May I not learn, most perfect nun, thy rosary 

of song — 
Whence dost thou come, and whither go, so 

purposeful and free. 
In perfect peace unquestioning thy wedding 

with the sea? 



(Though often spying on the brook, I never 

clearly heard 
The vespers of her dreamy song — but now I 

caught each word) — 
"For ages, have my wavelets sung this song, to 

this refrain — 
For ages, as they kissed these stones, to never 

come again ! 



"Each tiny drop of water rushes onward to the 
sea — 

It never stops to look behind, nor asks what is 
to be; 

It seems to know just where to go, and straight- 
way rushes on. 

Careless of all, who come there, dependent upon 
none ! 



6ood 77 

"But, as the little dewdrops, like children at 

their play, 
Work on, without a single stop, carolling care 

away — 
Each helps the other drop along, blending her 

song with his — 
And so they seem to be one stream, with but 

one song of bliss ! 

"We know not whence we come, nor go, nor can 

retrace our steps — 
Yet onward o'er the stones must flow, in dark 

and sunny depths — 
But, resting truly in our God, we trust that we 

shall be 
Borne onward, in one singing stream, to Him, 

who is our sea!" 

LADY OF SORROWS 

God brings me low with Sorrow, 

That darkness over me 
Shall send me dreams of morrow 

From every star I see — 

That, when my woes are over, 
My Soul may rise, at morn, 

May leave life, as a mother 
The bed, where Joy was born I 



78 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE FIR-TREE AND THE PALM 

Stand me like the fir-tree, 

Green above the snows — 
Where the sun, at last free, 

Sheds his cape of rose — 
Where, like Alpine soldiers, 

Stand we to the blast, 
Shoulders touching shoulders. 

Singing to the last! 

Not a sorry palm-tree, 

Standing sentinel 
In the desert daily 

O'er his secret well — 
Yet, if one I must be, 

Who, but Saints, can tell 
Whom my shade may shelter 

In deserted hell! 

WERE THINGS NOT AS THEY ARE 

What to me is sorrow 

Is another's joy — 
What I want to borrow 

Is another's toy; 

Stars are given darkness. 

Shadows given day — 
Would we know their likeness 

Any other way! 



Good 79 

A CRIPPLE 

Poor in the body, even unto debt, 
But fortified with spiritual powers, 
He turns to good, whatever pour the hours, 
Disarming fortune, more than fairly met 
By his indomitable cheer — nay ! let 
Him weep, 'tis only one of his sun-showers — 
He seems the brighter for his woes, like flowers, 
Which smile the more, the more their eyes are 
wet! 

See! there he goes on crutches, crudely built, 
Skipping with jollity, a whistling boy; 
Ye Gods ! he turns his crutch into a stilt — 
A thing on which to rise, to speed the stride. 
To play with, ho ! to ford this rushing tide — 
O Bravery, God gives to each his joy! 

TO DISPARAGEMENT 

With random visions fair, that I am right — 
With constant real sights, that I am wrong — 
With faith and love forever burning bright, 
My star keeps marching to its spirit's song! 

What though I may dispel but little gloam, 
And many larger stars around me roll — 
Enough ! that I may guide some vessel home- 
Enough ! the glory of a quenchless soul ! 



80 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

MY WINDOW 

There is a window in my life, 

Through which I look on Paradise — 
Ah! who but thee, my lovely wife, 
My window to the skies — 

For, when thou art not here, I find 
That time hath drawn my only blind! 

But, when thou art before me, Dear, 

I feel a window, open wide — 
Through which, into my lonely lair, 
Streameth a sparkling tide 

Of scents, that tell of fields afar 
And songs of many a wandering star! 

And that is why I love thee so, 
My only window to the skies — 
Without thee I am blind, I know, 
And deaf to Paradise — 

Oh ! all these beauties, outside me, 
I see, and hear, and touch through thee; 
God bless thee ! 

A MOUNTAINEER 

What makes yon mountaineer 

So hale and hearty? 
It is the hills, my Dear, 
The hard old hills, I fear. 
That make yon mountaineer 
Worth a party! 



Good 81 

THE ETERNAL HUMAN 

A THOUSAND times, have I foresworn the domi- 
nance of sin — 

A thousand times, though beaten down, will I 
arise again ; 

Though charge the wildest armies, and charging 
tramp me o'er, 

They shall not see the morn, when I arise to 
fight no more! 



Each time I rise, their victory is held by me for 

noughts — 
Each time I rise, I rise yet free, however dearly 

bought ; 
Nor far the day, when I shall link that sunny 

coat of mail. 
From which whatever lance must glance, making 

its bearer quail! 



A victory is never won, except from vanquished 

lips — 
And though we fall, a thousand times, we still 

may mount the steps ; 
The glory of Mankind is hope, unconquerable 

hope — 
And greatest is that conquest, for which we 

hardest cope! 



82 Cbrough Dust to Light 

THE LAST LAUREL 

What have I won my laurels for? 

Was it for them alone — 
Was it to feel, that I was more 

Than you, or anyone? 

Perhaps, in the frenzied foot-race, 

I cared not for those, who fell; 
Perhaps, I thought that the cup, once caught, 

Was a prize, that none would sell ! 

But now, in the night-time, comrades, 

I cry to the vanquished of me. 
Here ! take my old, old cup of gold — 

'Tis empty ! unless ye love me ! 

LOVE IN DEATH 

If death be night and love be light. 
Shall love endure in beauty's flight? 
Still, out her stars, her soul plays bright — 
Love hath always loved the night ! 

THE END AND THE BEGINNING 

O BLIND, old Harper ! — Art thou played out — 
Have all thy Lovers left thee lorn? — 

Friend! When all the stars fade out, 
Look for the Morn! 



Good 83 

WORTHINESS 

All ye, who love, are worthy to be loved — 
But he, who loves not, is not worthy of it — 
For who has been, or who shall be above it. 
Since God loves all, and so our God is proved: 
As I may love, am I from dust removed — 
As God may love, is he a God to me ; 
Love is the measure of divinity. 
And makes his own strong Heaven, starry 
grooved ! 

Not worthy to be loved? Oh! say not so; 
Nobler than I then Thou — for this I know, 
As the soul loves, so lives that soul with God: 
What better has this lonely world to give, 
Than to be loved and, loving, learn to live — 
Who else, who else but Love, can bear the sod ! 

THE RAINBOW 

Send me seven sorrows, 

For my seven sins — 
As the shower borrows, 

When the light begins — 

Seven shades of Sorrow — 

So that I may shine 
Even as a rainbow. 

Out of light divine! 



84 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE SPARROW-HAWK 

The sparrow-hawk is like an arrow-head, 
His beak is hke a finger, crook'd to cling — 
His head and neck are like a fist and wrist, 
And like a scimitar his wing ! 

How rigidly he cuts his even course — 
As level as a skiff upon a lake — 
Certain his movements, calculated, terse 
As those an ordered army take! 

His will is undivided, and he cares 
Nothing at all, but for himself and mate — 
Neither repents, nor prays, nor ever shares 
The passions that, unfed, abate! 

How silently, yet how portentously 
He skims — a shadow in the sunny air- — 
Above the birds, that sing so carelessly. 
For they . . . they know not He is there! 

He drops! (My heart drops with him to the 

sod — 
But now — I am the bird, his talons tore!) 
The larks sing on, the field is ... oh! my 

God . . . 
The whole, wide world is as before! 



Good 85 

AFTER THE RAIN 

When the rain has fallen 

Gently from the skies — 
Twilight lingers, as when 

Plaintive music dies ; 

Then, with scent and bright surprise, 
Musty woods are sweetened — 

Laughing, now, the flowers' eyes — 
Nesting winds are fleetened! 

When the tears have fallen 

Softly from my Soul — 
Still I seem as callen 

By some vesper-toll; 

Then, as from a christening bowl, 
Freshly am I risen — 

Hope and love, like incense, roll 
From my Spirit's prison ! 

THE WEDDING GARMENT 

Dress in pleasant thoughts — 

Some, in gloam. 
Feel, at Heaven's feast, 

Not at home ! 

Dress in pleasant thoughts — 

Heaven's host 
Bids, who live the best, 

Not a ghost! 



86 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

JOY AND SORROW 
I 

A LITTLE star is shining bright, 

Because it shines from shadow — 
A little joy is all delight, 

Because it comes from sorrow: 
And both are really pleasanter, 

Because they pass away — 
Because they go, to minister 

Unto the coming day! 

II 

I listened to a little bird 

Upon a leafy bough; 
He never thought, that one, who heard. 

Would hear him singing now — 
He never thought, his song would die. 

Nor sang a minor strain — 
He sung of joy, and that is why 

He sung his song again ! 
Ill 
Among her thorns a blushing rose, 

As beautiful as Love — 
As Love, among a thousand woes — 

Drew down a boy above; 
Because she was so perilous. 

He wanted her the more — 
And, when she bled his hand, he said, 

Thou'rt rosier than before ! 



Good 87 

FORTITUDE 

The bravest man was he, who bore with charity 

our woes — 
Come! tyrant Woe, if thou wilt crush the 

perfume from the rose — 
For, bent beneath thy crossing heel, my flower 

in its pain 
Shall scent the winds with incense, and sweeten 

life again! 

The Pessimist is but a bat, that flies but in the 

night — 
And that is but God's shadow, who turns his 

face from light! 
But why gaze on my shadow, why not face 

about and glow. 
To see the castle of the sun withstand the clouds 

below ? 



In every battle, many a hero foots in rank and 

file- 
Unnoticed, unadorned, he marches onward, 

mile on mile — 
Till Death may bring his small despatch of 

Honorable Discharge, 
Discharge of Soul from body, and the prisoner 

at large ! 



88 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

The harder climb, the higher hill, from which 

we may look down — 
Come! up the highest hill of all, the floods can 

never drown; 
Reared on its topmost peak, our flag of 

Fortitude shall wave 
And laugh to scorn, left far below, the woes, 

that would enslave! 

Look! Up yon heap of Martyrs flames the 

happiness of Man — 
Up those dark steps hath mounted Life, since 

ever time began! 
Then hail! thou light-house, Fortitude, star 

thou our stormy sea 
And hurl back wave on wave from thy rock 

base. Eternity! 



THE KINGBIRD AND THE CROW 

Above the big, black crow 
In shameful flight — 
The tiny kingbird so 
Displays his might: 

The while he guides his wings. 
Is not alarmed, 

And keeps above such things — 
He can't be harmed ! 



Good 89 

A LONE STAR 
A LONE Star, 

In eternal and singular splendor, 
Lost in the light of Day, 
Burns unknown — 

Shines in vain 
Ever and ever — 
But shines 
Forever ! 

TO A CHILD 
O BEAUTIFUL and strange inhabitant 
Of childhood's Wonderlands of flowers and 

fays. 
Where now thy face, the morning's dewdrop, 

plays 
A little rainbow of its love, aslant — 
Such lively joy I ne'er beheld, I grant, 
Such dancing and such laughter ! Have thy days 
No colors from the brush of worldly ways — 
No scarlet, sallow, gray — none dissonant? 

Thou little Bluebell! simple, happy, free, 
How beautiful is all thy world to thee — 
A world of sleepy clouds in tender skies — 
Too heavenly ! it melts before mine eyes — 
For, exiled, I shall ne'er return to be 
A little citizen of Paradise! 



90 Cbrough Dust to tight 

IT'S ALL IN THE HEART 
1. 

Way out in the fresh young fields of May, 
Where birds are busy and brooks at play— 
I am the one, dark spot to-day ! 

They care not, if I do as they — 
If I come, or if I stay — 
Nor if I must pass away! 

Out in the clashing waters dark. 
Lost and tossed in my tiny bark — 
My dancing lamp is the only spark! 

I float in faith — it is the ark — 

And trusting God and his billows, hark! 

My heart sings sweeter than any lark! 

3. 
When the fields were gay, I became as they ; 
When I sang at sea, it was soon like me; 
My world is an art — it's all in the heart ! 



THE COMPASS 

North, South, East, West are bound as 
By one grief and one loss — 
When first I saw the Compass, 
I found it was a Cross I 



Good 91 

THE COMPANION 

My steps are not alone — 
Oh! all the way hath gone 

Some one beside me; 
And as, before, He staid — 
He shall be mine, for aid, 

Whate'er betide me ! 

So, as we march along, 
I learn to sing His song. 

Making me braver ; 
Until — when I can see 
'Twas Death, that marched with me — 

I know my Saviour ! 

HARP OF THE HEART 

Were not the strings in strain — 

Were not the heart in pain, 

The winds of music, breathing through. 
Would ne'er wake melodies in you. 
No songs of joy, no beauties true, 

But discords, discords o'er again ! 

Were not the strings in strain. 

How sad the low refrain — 

The broken harp were hung along 
The walls, now silent unto song. 
Where only ghosts of Memories throng 

In vain — in vain! 



92 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A LITTLE RESURRECTION 

My heart is dead! — What more? — I cannot 

moan — 
Oh ! come — get up — lift up thine eyes ! But 

where? 
Yet, all around, the vernal Earth is fair, 
Veiling a lovely promise, all her own! 
Why have not all the joys of Earth ingrown 
Even to my Soul, and filled it with an air 
Stirring with scents, bird-songs, and all that's 

there. 
Hid in the leaf, bark, flower, even stone? 

I will be happy, as the Earth around me! 
What's to prevent — have I a heart to mend? 
I cannot mend it until Joy has found me! 
And shall not all hearts die, to be reborn — 
Yes ! break in dust, like flower-seeds ? Come, 

Friend — 
When all the stars grow faint, look for the 

Morn! 

THE HOLY LIGHT OF SORROW 

"the light in every tear!" 
The day, that comes from Heaven, 
Is kept but in a tear — 
It is the fire Promethean, 
For which He suffered here — 



Good 93 

The light, that burneth not, 
But maketh all things clear — 
As rain, that spurneth not 
The dust, but dieth here! 

Did pauper Earth not borrow. 
Darkling, the dews of Sorrow — 
Where were those little lamps. 
Lighted from Heaven's camps! 

The light of day is meet 
And maketh all things sweet — 
But that of tears not least, 
O kindly dews, O Priest! 

FLING WIDE THE WINDOWS 

Fling wide the windows of the wasting Soul — 
And let nor rust, nor vine the shutters chain — 
Lest thou canst never open them again 
And darkling sit and sip thy scanty bowl ! 
Too much of candle-light has been thy dole — 
For want of sun and air thy roses wane — 
They shall but bloom the better for the rain; 
Beware lest night leave not thine eyesight whole I 

Fling wide the windows — thou shalt hear afar 
The song, that birds have never sung before. 
And hear the Weaver humming at his loom ; 
For thee, on yonder thorn, a rose shall bloom — 
For thee is dying into day a star — 
Fling wide the windows, for the night is o'er! 



94 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

JOY FROM SORROW, II 
I BORROW joy from sorrow, 

A rainbow from the rain — 
If life were not in shadow. 

My star would shine in vain ! 

And so, for many darkling woes, 
I may not wisely mourn — 

For well I know, the sweetest rose 
Must blossom from a thorn! 



GOOD: THE EPILOGUE 

What is Good — if I may ask? 

*'He Cometh in disguises — 
Comic, or tragic mask; 

Doffed, with the old surprises!'* 

What is Good — if I may ask, 
I would wish to know him? 

"Marry! He'll unmask, 

But when good you show him!" 



Beauty 
I* 6niotton 



THE GENIUS 
Along the mountain ledge I tread, 

Alone in joy and woe — 
I brush the heaven with my head, 

And I have looked below: 

I do not meet with anyone — 

No sound is in the air — 
Within an arm's reach of the sun. 

But one step to despair! 

HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR 

Star of the North! O Star, most high, 

In silent splendor on thy throne — 
Ruler of earth and sea and sky, 

Pilot of all ships, dark, alone — 
Around thee move, as in a dream. 

The choiring golden court above — 
Star of the North! O Star, supreme. 

Thy name — thy name is Love! 

Star of the North! Lone Star of Love, 

Enthroned upon the soul of time — 
Into our darkness, from above. 

Oh! rain thine influence sublime — 
Thou steadfast Heart of flaming gold. 

In whose command the suns have trod- 
Swing us to thee. Lodestar of old. 

Star of our Love — our God! 



98 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

TEARS 

Tears of failure — 
Tears of want — 
Tears, for what in 
Me is scant — 

Like a flower, 
Dews on fire 
Lift me higher, 
Lift me higher ! 

MUSIC IN THE MINSTER 

As, IN the awful loneliness and peace 
Of sleeping mountains, the winds' cavalry 
Down the ravine come sweeping to the sea, 
Hurling their glorious anthem of release 
Up at the skies, until the sounds increase 
Out of the caves, like serfs, arising free 
With shouts, to follow as the infantry, 
Off to the ocean — where their sound shall 
cease — 

Oh ! so the mighty organ's voices pour 
A whirlwind of rich music down the nave, 
Rousing the echoes from each eery cave 
Above the low stones of the stream-worn floor — 
And far across the olden legions wave, 
Stilled at the sight, that breaks upon the door ! 



Beauty— etnotion 99 



THE MIDNIGHT BELL 

DUET 

" Tone ! " The tower bell is tolling — 

" Zone ! " The moon is over rolling — 
" Moan ! " A distant sentry keepeth 

" Lone ! " watch, while the city sleepeth ; 

" Gone ! " I see my life behind me, 

" Done ! " I never can unbind me — 

" On ! " One moment more forever 

" Gone ! " I can restore it never ; 

" On ! " And still the world goes slowly 
" On ! " And still it leaves life lowly 
" Gone ! " Hold ! doom not yet the centuries — 
"Done!" 



FAITH 

Thank God! I cannot see 
What will come to me — 
Should it failure be, 
I would die! 

Thank God! I have to trust, 
I will not be dust — 
If my Spirit must. 
Let me die! 



100 Cbrough Dust to Light 

A LITTLE RHAPSODY 

I WILL sing a little song unto my Love, 
For my mouth is sweet with her name — 
A little song of fields, and birds and brooks, 
Busy in hurrying around their flower Loves, 
Busy in dressing them with a thousand 
affections ! 

For I, too, am of Heaven — 
And my thoughts are the music of the mind, 
Sending mad thrills to my temples 
And running, like a sweet hand, down to my 
feet! 

O beautiful meadows and stately grasses around 

me — 
Why are you waving, nodding and whispering 

so? 
Surely, you are chatting over this enchanting 

scandal — 
Surely, you have stolen some honey out of my 

heart — 
Surely, it is you, not I, that are having your 

Sweethearts beside you! 

But see! every flower is delighted — 

Oh ! how they smile ! 

Even the mighty Heavens are beaming upon 

us — 
For all things love true Lovers ! 



Beauty — emotion lOl 

Hey! little wild rose — 
Do not smile at me so saucily! 
Did I not catch a bee, kissing you yesterday? 
Nay ! do not hang your head — " 'Twas all his 
fault!" I suppose? 

Oh! I shall never get tired of these fields of 

Love — 
Never get tired of lying among the clovers — 
Never get tired of singing beautiful things — 
For every blade, that's here, was made for 

Love, 
And this morning, at least, I am Love himself ! 

TRUE TO THE KINDRED POINTS OF 
HEAVEN AND HOME 

Beauty! if thou would'st have me such 

As I would fain have thee — 
Let me not love thee, Love, too much. 

Nor thou too much love me; 

But love thou me as I love thee. 

Both neither more nor less — 
Lest what may seem a joy to me 

Prove thine unhappiness: 

My Love! though I would die in flight, 

To reach thy flaming star — 
Whether for lack or too much light, 

I cannot fly so far! 



102 Cbrougb Dust to Light 



A SONG IN THE MOUNTAINS 

We sang on the lakes in the mountains — 
But, as soon as our song was dead, 

From a thousand, rainbowed fountains 
The echoes sprang o'erhead; 



And the whole dome rang like a bluebell- 
Holy and clear and mellow — 

As lone as the tone of the moon-shell, 
But ripe as a violoncello ! 



Then held in a glorious wonder 

And swelled with the sounds sublime- 

We beheld the Heavens asunder 

And thrilled with the Angels' chime; 



As the sun sank down, in his glory, 
Like a hero, dying, but proud — 

While the hills, that knew his story, 
In solemn procession bowed! 



O ye glorious mountain echoes! 

Shall a single human voice 
Have the power, to free your shadows 

And awake your souls to rejoice? 



Beauty— emotion 103 

O ye, that sleep in the mountains, 
In the dim and lonely caves — 

How long have been sealed your fountains, 
How long to the silence slaves? 



Awake! thou Rainbowed River, 
Thou hymn of a thousand parts — 

I call with the call of the Lover, 
That sings in the Nations' hearts ! 



A WILD ROSE 

A ROSE, unravished by the throng. 

In wildness blooms — 
Where wind and wavelet sigh a song 

Of its perfumes : 



That rose, my secret love for thee. 

In vain entreats. 
At thy fair feet, each passing bee 

To lay its sweets! 



Beside the rose, Hope's violet 
Once smiled unknown: 

Now pressed, Hope crumbles to Regret- 
Love droops alone ! 



104 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

No more on Hope thy Spirit's dew 

In twilight falls — 
Burning to dust for thirst of you, 

Unheard it calls ! 

And to the dell, where Love doth blow, 

I sometimes stray ; 
Alas ! that even I should know 

It blooms to-day! 

THE MEADOW-LARK 

Out and away, Love, o'er meadows of hay. 
Love, 
Glittering meadows as wide as the seas; 
Racing and chasing with laughter and play. 
Love — 
Fluttering pennants, that fly in the breeze! 
Fresh is the scent of the blossoming meadows, 

Plaintive and sweet is the lover lark's sigh — 
Hark! he is calling now, "Sweets aye! Steal 
away !" 
Over the meadows of billowy rye! 

Hark! for my Heart is a meadow-lark calling, 

Calling to thee. Dear ! — Nobody hears ! 
Lightly his silvery bubbles are falling. 

Falling to earth, and bursting to tears! 
Slowly the darkness is gathering round him. 

Singing away on the old fence still; 
Darker to dark — ah! the hawk has found him! 

Silence rains, and the whip-poor-will! 



Beauty — Smotion 105 

MAN IS UNDER NATURE'S BAN 
The fairy bird peered at the blue, 

To fling a paean fairly; 
But when the wind said, "Hush !" — ^he flew 

And left me hiding sparely! 

I knew not, as we fled apart, 
What woes the wind began O — 

But wept, a little, in my heart, 
That I was under ban O ! 



HYMN TO THE RISING SUN 

Giver of life, O sun among the stars. 

Rise from the shades and shine upon the 

earth — 
Yon clusters of the Dead no darkness mars. 
But earth is deaf and blind before her birth; 
Her birth into thy world of blushing light, 
Where sleeping buds their dewy lips unclose — 
For where were they, so near us in the night, 
But for the light of thy returning rose! 
Break on us ! sun of Love ; within us lie. 
As in the myriad daisies, ere the day, 
The golden hearts of mysteries most high. 
Images of thyself, that hide away — 

Till lorn for thee, our daisy eyelids drawn. 
Earth opes a thousand morning-stars to 
dawn! 



106 €hrough Dust to Light 

SATYR SONG 
A Satyr, I bore no soul, 
Till Love came about the bend — 

For Love's the beginning of all 

And Love is the end! 



So I would that I had no soul, 
With nought to mend — 

For Love's the beginning of all 

And Love is the end! 



A SONG OF SLEEP 

At night, my Spirit creeps 
Out of its house of clay, 

And over the starry deeps 
Soars far away: 

But, ere the robin's ode. 
My Spirit creeps once more 

Into its dark abode 
By a hidden door! 

So all that my Soul retains 
Of its dreamland, star a-bloom, 

Are a few phantasmal strains 
And a faint perfume: 



Beauty — emotion 107 

Stirring with them, all day 

It brightens my home with song, 

Dreaming how far away 
It will be, ere long ! 



Some night, my Soul shall soar 
With the singing comets, lost- 

To return oh! nevermore 
To its house of dust: 



And none shall ever know 
Of my house, my old repose 

Unless above it blow 
Some Lover's rose! 



A SONG OF MELANCHOLY 

My heart is like a broken bell. 

Sunk in a dismal sea; 
It hath a doleful tale to tell. 

It cannot tell to thee: 
Only an echo in its shell 

Sighs for the distant shore; 
Swung by the wind and every swell— 

"Never, never more!" 



108 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

SAFE AND SURE 
Out of the depths, I raise 

A hymn to God! 
Breathing my last, I praise 

His outstretched rod! 
One and alone, I live 

Unto the last — 
Knowing what God will give, 

When it is past! 

Sing! on the sinking ship — 

What do I care 
Though all its planks may slip 

Into despair — 
What is the sea to me? 

Swinging, each portal 
Leads to the Life, that's free — 

I am immortal! 

THE CURSE OF CAIN 

Why does the bird fly away, mother — 

Have I not been good to-day? 
I have brought some crumbs for my little 
brother ! 

Is he afraid to stay? 

'Tis the curse of Cain, of thy father's father. 
And a Child must suffer, too. Dear — 

'Tis because, poor Love, we live on each other, 
And the curse of the World is fear! 



Beauty— emotion 109 



JUST ONCE 

The butterfly is floating 

O'er meadows, sweet with hay — 
The wren is madly singing, 

Bathed in the flood of day — 
Oh ! wilt thou come away, to play. 
And trust the road to chance? 
Life's noon is on the wing ! they say — 
So come away — just once! 



Oh! wilt thou with me wander 
Through daisies, o'er the lea? 

There's not a one, to hinder — 
So come along with me ! 

How through the clover twines the bee, 

And how he kisses in the dance! 

The moon is shadowed soon! May we 

Not be as he? Just once! 



LOVE AND DEATH 

Love is God, and Love is human — 
Love! and thou shalt be a God; 

But, ere thou can'st be in Heaven, 
Be as little flowers even — 
And a flower, sweet as woman. 
Lifts her face, to be downtrod! 



110 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A SCOTCH SONG 

I KNOW Somebody O, 

I lo'e Somebody O! 

I maun see her, doun the dale, 
Climbin' wi' her milkin' pail — 
Och! my heart, an' maun ye quail. 

Will ye no be slow? 

No' she nestles to her co', 
Croonin' what I can but lo'e — 
Och! her luvely body O 
Melts my min' awa' — 
Sure ! I canna wark at a', 
Sae near my Dearie O! 

Haud! my heart, an' I'ee her gae! 
Bide a wee — it maun be sae ! 

(Lost an' lane, when she is gane, 
Saft maun be your sprinklin'!) 
Haud, until her window pane 
Is a-twinklin'! 



SPRING 

Safe in the orchard, in their snowy cot, 
Darby and Joan cling to their happy lot — 
Spring is about them, and the trees are white. 
White as the curls, the cottage hides to-night ! 



Beauty — emotion ill 

TO ONE 

How beautiful thy soul, to love me so ! 
What beauty lies in me, I may not know — 
Save when I am a glass to thy fair face, 
Who fancies, here, to see another's grace! 



How dark the mirror of my soul would be. 
Were it not lighted by thy love for me — 
An icy moon, hid from his sun, I too 
Would mourn my buried world with tears of 
dew! 



As when the altar's taper leans to light 
Some candle, kissing in the church of night — 
So, while thy flaming soul stoops over mine. 
My soul takes fire at the touch of thine! 

Ah! once, how little did I care to know, 
The star could love the lowly flower so — 
But now, without thee in the lonely gloom, 
I fear, that I would lose my Spirit's bloom! 



Love is the light of Life — far better dead 
Is he, from whom the light divine hath fled; 
Love is the life of Life, his heat and motion. 
And life is tempered to the heart's devotion! 



112 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE WINTER OF THE SOUL 

Summer, and yet, the old man, he doth con- 
geal— 
He feels the winter, that Youth cannot feel! 



LOVE AND AGE 

Fear not, my Love, that I shall love thee less, 
When faded is thy maiden loveliness — 
Opens that daisy, in my dawning eyes. 
As when she rose, at first, to our sunrise! 

When prisoners in the snow of yesterdays. 
We warm our hands, before the gathered 

blaze — 
How we shall con those petals, O my rose, 
That in the pages of my life repose! 

Ah! thou shalt grow, as yon departing sun, 
More dawn-like, as thy summer day is done — 
No evening cloud shall hide thy rosy ray, 
I, like the wind, will blow them all away! 

When melodies are silent, friends are fled. 
When all the sweetness of the day is dead — 
When withered are thy beauties, gone before, 
For every one, I shall but love thee more! 



Beauty— emotion lis 

THE CALL IN THE HEART 

"Thee ! Thee ! Thee— 
Whoever, wherever Thou art!" 
Is the call in my hollow heart, 
As the moan in the shell for the sea : 

Oh! the ceaseless monotone 
That moans, as the days depart, 
"My Own! My Own! My Own — 
Whoever, wherever Thou art!" 

Come ! Love ! come out of the sea 
To the shell on the lonely shore — 
Come ! Love, oh ! come and be 
In my heart forevermore! 

HEREDITY 

A LITTLE of the everlasting dust. 
Whereof the fleeting butterfly was moulden, 
Clings to its wings — as unto moments must 
The immemorial dust of ages golden ! 

TO THE SPHINX 

Dust unto dust ? But star-dust all the while ! 
Cup upon cup ? But higher what is full ! 
Is it not well, contented Sphinx? Then smile — 
He, too, hath smiled, who thought thee 
beautiful ! 



114 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A MADRIGAL 

I WISH thee many woes, my Love, 

I wish thee many woes — 
How sweet to crush the cruel thorns 

Around my blushing rose ! 
I wish thee tattered weeds, my Sweet — 

A barefoot maid, to glean — 
I'd heap thine arms with golden wheat, 
Bind sandals to thy rosy feet, 
And robe thee as a queen, my Sweet, 

And robe thee as a queen ! 
Wert thou. Dear, but a daisy. 

No sweeter than the rest — 
Among them all I'd raise thee. 

And pin thee to my breast : 
But withered in the sunshine. 

Or by a heel low lain — 
My tears should turn thy sunny wine. 
The golden dew, that made thee shine. 

That made thee shine again ! 



POVERTY 

Even as these poor men, I see. 
In thy house, Lord, so let me be — 
Nay ! of them all let me be low'st. 
That I may feel thy greatness most 1 



Beauty— emotion 115 

THE HIDDEN LIFE 

I LIVE a thousand lives — 

My life, thy life— 
And, when my sorrow thrives, 

I live the most: 
So, on an ocean's woe, 

High am I tost ; 
I live a thousand lives — 

What happy strife! 

MAN AND BEAUTY 
Ah, Beauty ! that thy lips should leave a throe ! 
My body strives to thee — again ! again — 
My soul, thrown down at last, cries "Take her 

then, 
And learn the wage of joy is equal woe!" 
Ah, God ! that j oy , the sweetest that I know. 
That joy of wedding souls should be a sin — 
That Beauty, like a siren star, should win 
Me to the mountaintop — to fall below! 

Stop, cloud! stop wind! Speak! speak — oh! 

tell me why 
These things are so — I feel that I am wrong — 
Will no voice hush the sobbing of my song? 
Will no voice from the gentle, pitying sky 
Comfort the child with some old lullaby ? 
Then I— "Be strong!" . . . The Heaven— 

"Be strong! be strong!" 



116 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A LOVE SONG 
Up wind! go wind, 
Fly sad and joyous wind — 
Tell her, I love but her, 
Queen of all, I find — 
Up wind! go wind. 
Fly sad and joyous wind — 
A thousand flowers nod their heads- 
Go wind, go wind ! 



Up wind ! go wind, 

From the mountain tops oh ! bring it- 

From the seas, from the leas. 

With the waves and rivers sing it! 

Fly wind! and say. 

With sweet music in her ear — 

The very stars sing in their course, 

"I love thee, Dear !" 



Haste wind, haste wind I 
Say unto her, my Love, 
The Heavens are her, the sun, the air- 
Hold! that is not enough; 
Go wind! and sing, 
I come, like snow on fire, 
A god, with sunbeams on his head. 
To storm his heart's desire! 



Beauty — emotion 117 

THE LIGHT 

Where are the flowers of earth, 
When the sun is fled — 
What is the world worth, 
When Love is dead: 

An ember, she must repose 
In the urn of night — 
Till thorns of a crowning rose 
Let in the light ! 

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE ROSE 

Of all the happy flowers, that flare 

Out on the sunny lea. 
There's none so fair, it can compare 

With what thou art to me : 
Thou art the sum of every one — 

A flower is to thee 
Only a star, where many are 

And only birds can be ! 

When like a butterfly, that sips 

The nectar from a rose. 
Lightly, upon thy dewy lips, 

I still as death repose — 
How cold to feel a wind may steal 

Over the summer hay 
And wither oh ! my flower, my flower, 

And blow me far away ! 



118 Chrougb Dust to Light 

TO A SUNSET 
Thou full-blown promise of a Dawn to be ! 
Thou starry wake of crowded, golden Day, 
Her crimson Hour-sails full-set, oh ! stay, 
Or bear thy Lover, too, abroad with thee ! 
How breathless, now, but mournful, stands each 

tree — 
Like those, who saw Columbus sail away — 
Even the drawn-up mountains seem to pray. 
With brows a-glow, for all thy destiny! 

So sunk the Soul of Christ ! as hill and vale. 
Chilled by the parting, trembled — and the dews 
Fell fast as tears from Heaven's closing eyes! 
A little while, and all his light we lose — 
A little while, and from the night we rise — 
Then ! to the Country of the Dawn, O hail ! 

LOVE'S REPENTANCE 

Ah, Love ! could you but see my Soul, 

The godlike image of me, 
And all the glory of my role — 

Then ! Love — then you would love me t 

But could you see my Spirit's ill. 

The dust upon the flake — 
And tell me, that you loved me still — 

No, no ! — my heart would break ! 



Beauty— emotion 119 

MY MOTHER'S MUSIC 

As FROM the dark, primeval rock 

With but a fragrant rod, 
Moses struck forth a spring, that broke 

Into the light of God — 



So thou, my Mother, with thy finger 
Struck, from the night sublime, 

The melody, that loves to linger. 
Starring the heart of Time ! 



THE MASTER-SINGER 

Their sweetest songs the Poets brought — 

Songs of renown. 
Songs of the Heart and Soul — and thought 

To win the crown; 
Then someone sang — 'twas known by heart 

In many lands. 
And well-nigh worn and torn apart 

By many hands — 
A song, which made all others fall ! 

Its name was gone — 
The oldest, sweetest song of all 

Was signed "Anon"! 



120 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A VACANT HOUSE 
A VACANT house! How gray its face has 

grown — 
I never thought a thing could be so bare — 
Forsaken by the birds, and even care, 
It sleeps, as still and silent as a stone : 
High weeds are where the brown-eyed sun- 
flowers shone — 
And oh ! 'tis dark and chilly as a lair ! 
No more does anyone, not even the air, 
Sing the old songs — it dreams, but dreams 
alone ! 

Then oh! how like that empty home, the heart 
From which — how long ago — Love did depart. 
As if it dwelt within the waste forever; 
For, like that little homestead, warp it must. 
Mouldering, overgrown with moss, to dust — 
For Life can live without Love's household 
never ! 

VETERANS 

As I pass the strangers' faces 

In the street — 
Shocked by those unmeant grimaces. 

That I meet- 
Then I see the shapes of fear, 
In the world, that would appear. 
Could the face be lifted clear, 

Like a sheet ! 



Beauty— 6inottoii 121 

But the Singer in me says 

That they are, 
Not the track of Wickedness, 

But the scar — 
Then with beating heart to scan. 
For, by God, there's not a Man 
Who is not a Veteran 

In Life's war! 



TO EMOTION: EPILOGUE 

Dayspring! From which have come 
All shades, that over the hilltops roam — 
Dayspring! In which we see 
The forms of all set free ; 



I say Fare-well to Thee, 
Knowing that Thou wilt be 
In my heart, my heart forever, 
And woken at my will; 



For the music of Emotion 
Is no self-centred ocean — 
But moveth one to another, 
Although one's star be still ! 



Beauty 
H* Taney 



TO A BUTTERFLY 

Little barque with gaudy sails, 
Hustled by the summer breeze 

Over hills and over dales, 
Like a chip upon the seas — 

Hoy! thou little boatman merry, 

I will pay thee thrice thy ferry ! 

Take me to the distant hills — 

We can hail our neighbors nested. 

Stop to drink the daffodils, 
Off again, ere we are rested — 

Shouting to each busy fellow, 

Birds and bees — oh, hello ! hello ! 

Hi ! look out ! A rout of squalls, 
Children, make a mimic sally, 

Hustling thee, with hunting calls. 
Way out in a wild, new valley — 

Now they scamper off, to scare 

Thee becalmed, thou know'st not where! 

Hey ! my cruiser, butterfly. 

Hast no hand upon thy helmie ? 

Reckless little pilot ! Why 

Does not some breeze overwhelm thee- 

But, with neatly nodding prow. 

Beating skyward— tell me how? 



126 Cbrougb Pu8t to Light 

Tell me, boatman — thou, who art 

Like my Soul upon the sea, 
In its beating, bounding heart — 

Is no Spirit guiding thee? 
Yes ! But, when the barque goes down, 
Dost thou, little Soul, not drown? 



Art thou not afraid to die, 

Fairy derelict ? How brave, 
Oh ! how careless thou canst be, 

Floating over grave on grave — 
Hush! — When little boats capsize, 
Up the fairy boatman flies! 

So ! thou wilt not heed me now. 
Shoaled upon that foamy flower ! 

What if, lassoing thy prow 
With a spider's coil of silver, 

I should play at pirates bold, 

Plundering thy fairy gold? 

Tell me — where did'st win that honey? 

Gallant pirate, tell me true ! 
But, no doubt, thou spend'st that money 

At each tavern, thou com'st to — 
Pardon ! 'twas but banter ! Pray, 
Thy sweet anchor do not weigh ! 



Beauty— jfancy 127 

Well I never! thou art nary 

Boat and boatman, as I guessed — 

But a fallen Rainbow-fairy, 
With a tiny, sable vest, 

And a face, my fairy girl, 

Chisled like a tiny pearl! 



Angel from the holy wood. 

Stained as with the flowers' dust — 
Taking sunshine at the flood, 

Sharing clovers' honeycrust — 
Dream, that squanders noontide hours 
Kissing honeyed lips of flowers — 

Art thou really risen from 
Tombs in lonely forest places, 

Risen from a cold corpse, come 
Here to run in sparkling races 

Over fields, where heavenly fires 

Burn upon the flowers' spires? 

Tell me! full-blown, risen gem. 
Inlaid — has the Winged Boy 

Tossed thee from his diadem. 
Letting loose a winged Joy? 

Little loafer ! Fancy spun 

Thee of sunbeams — j ust for fun ! 



128 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

Once a fairy loved a flower; 

'Twas a delicate sweet-pea, 
Silken wing'd, but with no power 

To elope with him, so he 
Freed her with a kiss and sigh, 
Just to be his — butterfly ! 

See her dancing dazzlingly 

To the king, her splendid sun — 

Sweetheart of the busy bee, 

Wiling him from work begun! — 

Sweetest lives are fleet, 'tis said — 

Hanging by a golden thread! 

Farewell ! then, sweet butterfly. 
Farewell, little wanton maid. 

Idle, thoughtless, soon to die — 
Unsuspecting, unafraid — 

Like a first love, all too sweet. 

Thou art flown — no more we meet! 

A MERMAID'S SONG 

Where the seaweeds, lithe as willows, 

Sway, within the arms of billows. 

Languid, sleepy, satiate 

With the senses' sublimate — 

There is such a music strange 
That, in circling, change to change, 
It shall seem, enchanting you, 
Ever old and ever new! 



Beayty— fancy 129 

MEMORY 

As, THROUGH the sunset air, 
The land below is fair — 

The vale, that brought me breath, 

Is beautiful from Death: 

'Tis marvellous to see 
Nothing but Memory — 

To lie, where no to-morrow 

Can bring me sorrow ! 



HEART OF EARTH 

Nature is ever young and beautiful — 
Whether she don the Winter's pure disguise, 
Chanting through woods her patient litanies 
And sounding on the organ, sweet and dull — 
Or whether, in the Spring's mysterious lull. 
She pose, in melting marriage draperies, 
Praying to thee, with still, bewildering eyes, 
Silent and swift, as yonder white sea-gull; 

But it is when the Summer comes, she slips 
All her Bride robes, and shows herself to 

Heaven, 
Bathing in billowy skies, the seas of gold: 
Oh ! happy is the poet, to whom 'tis given. 
In dim green dells, to touch her wilding lips 
And wake the sleeping Beauty, as of old! 



130 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

TO A MOMENT 

Moment flitting by, 
Like a butterfly, 
Beautiful as Joy — 

Let thy wing 
Only leave some dust 
On the lips it kissed. 
So that flowers must 

From them spring ! 



Moment flitting by — 
What a joy, when I 
Spell the tapestry 

Of thy pinions : 
How I try to spin 
Webs to catch thee in, 
So that I can pin 

Thee for minions ! 



Then ! thou canst not die, 
Moment-butterfly, 
But art such a joy 

Freely given. 
That, when evermore 
Spirits o'er thee pore, 
They, instead, must soar 

Out to Heaven! 



Beauty— fancy I3l 

LOVE AND SPRING 

Where is my Love, to-day, to-day, 
When violets by the brook 
Are holding a musicale of May 
In a melancholy nook — 
When the bumblebee his worship hies 
Now there, now here, now there. 
While, busy with birds and butterflies, 
The flowers are holding a Fair ! 



The flowers are holding a Fair to-day, 
A Fair to-day, a Fair to-day — 
But what is the good, when She's away 
Every field is bare! 



I looked o'er the lea, but its whole book 

Only told of the way she took — 

Then all through the leaves and into the air 

And under that little flower there, 

For I was in despair ! 



Hi! saucy bird, in the clouds above, 
Seest thou not my Love? 
Then why dost thou sing so tauntingly- 
(He would not sing, if he could not set 
Ha I he is blind to me !) 



132 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

Give over, Spring! Thy dancers jeer — 

What is the use of all this cheer, 

If not surrounding her — 

How could I spy the Spring, 

Or hear this singing Ring, 

Were not my May Queen here! 

SECRETS BY THE WAY 

Listen! my sister, my sweet little rose — ■ 
Thou wilt befriend me, I know ! 
Songs have I sung to thee, every wind knows — '- 
See, every leaf nods so ! 

When thy sun said Good-bye, 

But left thy cheek no dew — 

Ere thou couldst droop and die. 

Somebody still was true — 

Somebody heartened thee with his tear-rushes. 

Breathed on thy lips and brought back all thy 

blushes I 
Come — wilt thou nod, fair rose? 

Listen ! my sister, my rose — 
When my love wanders this way — 

She, too, is wont to confide in thee, flower, 
Trading in secrets — I've seen you together — i 
Every rose will, they say! 
When my Love wanders this way — 



Beauty — fancy 133 

Tell her the secret of 
Thy bud and bloom is Love — 
Nor is a rose thy face 
But in thy sun's embrace — 
Whisper no bud would sleep 
Out in the clover, 
But with a star to keep 
Stern watch above her; 



Tell her, thou rosy nun, 
I'd be her star and sun — 
I'd be her star and her sun ! 



Wilt thou do this? 
What bliss ! 



Listen ! my sweet little rose — 
Only one more secret — one! 
Say to my Love, say — 
(She's tripping o'er hay this way!) 



Can a flower stem the wind 
Shielded by no mossy boulder. 
Nor with tender roots entwined 
Round a stone-heart, stronger, older? 



134 Cbrougb Pu8t to I^igbt 

Every flower hath a bee, 
Every bee a flower — 
May she marry, marry me, 
And this very hour; 
There will come a time, when we 
Have not any power— 
Every flower hath a bee, 
Every bee a flower! 

ON THE WAY 

In spring — 
What rapture 
Nature may capture 
Some dusky hour 
Conceiving that flower! 

Where is that patient control. 

With which Nature has spun from her Soul 

A flower — so little, yet whole? 

Think of the joy, 
The fun- 
When Nature felt that her toy 
Was done! 

Look at the robe, she wears 

This summer. 

To celebrate her flower — 

Covering all her cares 

With virgin power 

From the New-comer ! 



Beauty— fancy 135 

How many, many sons and daughters — 

Such as that leaf and flower — 

Nature has borne! 

Think of her woes — as deep, but wide as the 

waters : 
Think of her joys — the little gems of a 

shower ! 
Hast thou the power? 
What wonder, if she be worn — 

What wonder a mother is worn, in the fall, 

Seeing her children all 

So ruddy and blustery — 

Feeling old Winter's pall 

Draw over her, dusty ; 

Think of her olden joys and sorrows — ^ 

But, then, her to-morrows ! 



Now she is fair as a ghost — 
Sunny, yet wintry — 
Rest is upon her breast — 
How she smiles, blest! 

Must we forever be mourning? 

Look! Without warning. 

Says each, snowy lid — 

I am not dead. 

Instead 

Spring is within me! 



136 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

HEART'S SEASONS 

The seasons of my heart 
Are swift to come and go — 

No sooner violets start, 
Than falls the silent snow! 

But never dreams the rose, 
That, whereso'er she moves, 

The court of Summer goes 
And all the land is Love's? 

Oh! who will come, to glean 
The leaves, along her way — 

That greeted her, so green. 

And blushed, and turned to gray? 

A BIRD SONG TO THE SPRING 

O SWEETHEAET 

Spring, 
Thou dost impart 

Blossoms to everything — 
But most unto my heart! 

And sing 
To Thee, 
With sweetest art. 
Larks on the wing — 
Oh ! see. 
The highest is my heart ! 



Beauty— fancy 137 

CHILD TALK 

What strange tongues have we at birth! 

What on earth say we of earth? 

Old lands, lowlands — what's he say, 
Babbling in this wild, new way? 



EVE 

God thought — Man knoweth not enough, to 

cleave 
With wisdom to his natural family ; 
He readeth not my brook, my stone, my tree. 
Nor why my Heavens laugh, nor oceans grieve : 
I will — of foam and flower and sunbeam — 

weave 
A perfect thing, through which his Soul may 

see 
The beauty of all Nature, so that he 
Shall love his kin! — ^And so God fashioned 

Eve! 

perfect Eve ! For Thee, I love all things — 
Choir of all, in that sole voice that brings 
The life of Silences into my heart: 
In Thee are Heaven's joys and ocean's woes; 
O Love, how from thy lips I learnt at start 
All the immortal passion of the rose! 



138 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A JOY 

Atalanta ran swifter than Man, 

Because she was a joy; 
Had her Lover's heart but let her start, 

What use the Blindfold Boy ! 

I never caught a happy thought, 

Because I let her by — 
Though, but to live with one, I'd give 

The Apple-of-mine-eye ! 

THE BIRDS 

Birds do not die — I never saw one dead, 
Except that had been killed through careless- 
ness! 
Care? Ah! what care have they, save but to 

bless 
Their little ones, or man, or trees instead! 
To live and die, as if the world were bed — 
A place to float in, dream, or play, or kiss — 
And rise each dawn, as from the Rose of Bliss, 
Out in a world, where wing and wing may wed — 

Ah ! this is happiness — never to take a fly 

In the to-morrow, but to fling it off; 

As if to bathe to-day were not enough ! 

Oh, never ! never to feel Death creeping nigh — 

Never to feel his claws, until we die, 

And, then, turn out to be ... a ball of fluff! 



Beauty— fancy 139 

MY HOUSEHOLD 

Whence, sweet Joy — now whither Sorrow, 
Come to-day and gone to-morrow: 
Whence, brave Sorrow — whither Joy — 
Is it blind-man's buff, Winged Boy? 

Joy creeps in, while Sorrow counteth — 
Joy is caught, and Sorrow free! 
Small a body's peace amounteth — 
Children, what a pair you be ! 



A DEWDROP 
I WOULD our Souls could melt in one, 

One flaming drop of dew — 
As two snowflakes, warmed by the sun, 

Love would melt me in you ! 

What though His Tear should melt and rise. 

It would be free, not void — 
Oh! though each morn we sought the skies. 

We should not be destroyed! 

Oh ! say not that this may not be — 

We both know well enough, 
That on this sod our love is God 

And, after that, is Love ! 



140 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE SOUL ON BEAUTY 

As THE lips of Beauty give no repose, 
The Soul has the same, sweet power 
As the moth, that kisses the red, red rose. 
Then flies to another flower! 



MEMORY 
Memory mine, Old Friend, forever near me — 
Freer to chide, but ever wont to bless — 
Yet, when I will, a true advisor — yes ! 
So true a friend, that falser friends may fear 

thee! 
How long have been thy least attempts to cheer 

me — 
We two, that tented in the wilderness — 
What stories can'st thou tell, in my distress, 
Endearing present hours, as they endear thee! 

Memory ! should we part, I should go mad — 
Even should something wound thee, when the 

sad 
Hours arrive, and thou would'st fail to come: 
We fell together, when the Angels fell — 
And shall we part, now we are marching home? 
Ah, no ! God lets us, two, take Heaven, or Hell! 



Beauty— fancy 141 

BALLAD OF THE ROSE AND THE BEE 

She was a gay, wild rose — 
Never been kissed! 
He was a jolly bee; 
Many a sweetheart he; 
Kissed any flower, he chose; 
Many, I wist ! 

"Troubadour bee," said she, 
"Sweetly you sing! 
Whither so swiftly away? 
Stay for an hour, a day!" — 
"Ever! I vow," said he, 
*'Never to wing !" 



Time, with the wings of light, 
Soaring flew o'er; 
And, ere the rivulet froze, 
Withered the beautiful rose 
From a sunset to a night, 
Lovely no more! 



"Where is thy honey now?" 

Grumbleth the bee — 

"Why should I stay with thee, pray? 

I must be flying away !" 

Faithless, forgetting his vow. 

Leaves her to die! 



142 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

Yellow the leaves, her pillows — 
Snowy her sheets! 
Honey, nor hive hath the bee — 
Beggared and outcast is he — 
None, but the weeping willow's 
Pity he meets! 

"MY LASSIE HA'E A CANNIE ART" 

My lassie ha'e a cannie art — 

Now dinna ye gang try it I 
She's gi'en a kiss an' ta'en a heart — 

Deil kens wha' she does wi' it! 

I aft ha'e pried her bonnie mou', 
To draw my heart awa' then — 

But Deil tak' me, I'm that fou', 
I let it slip, an' a' then ! 

I aft ha'e laced her little waist, 
To buy her heart wi' blisses — 

But Deil tak' her, she's that chaste, 
She only keeps the kisses! 

LOVE IN DEATH 

Did Death not part, or quench these Lovers ? 
Ye stars ! what makes your eyes so bright — 
Has Death but hid these daily Rovers, 
To double Love's delight? 



Beauty— fancy 143 

LIFE AGAIN 

Love is life to me, its joy 
Makes of me a boy — 
Chasing Pleasure, blind to pain — 
Hey! the world goes round again! 

If the starry Heaven covers 

All the ancient lovers — 

Made, by Love, as young and fair — 

Hey! the dizzy round up there! 

A DREAM 

Ah! Love, to thine arms I creep, 
As a child doth creep to sleep : 
Sweet! thy bosom where I swoon, 
Is a flower-bed of June: 
Floating, oh! so dreamily. 
Lone, as on a sunset sea! 

A MOTH 

She fluttered to the Mount of Love, 
A Moth, who loved the flying — 

A Moth, as downy as a dove. 
That never 'hinks of dying : 

But there a Falcon, bold and bad. 

Who fed on fearless things. 
Destroyed her soul — alas! she had 

No eyes upon her wings! 



144 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

CLEARING 

AN ETCHING 

The storm is like a pearl, 

That, loosened from the lea, 
Maketh a water- whirl 

Of Mermen, such as we: 
The storm is like a pearl — 
But, now, the Sunshine-girl, 

Shy as Pandora pale, 

Opens the shelly vale! 

Now, in the purest light 
And etched upon the skies, 

Its barns divinely bright. 
The checkered valley lies; 

While, in its night made clear, 

As far as it seems near. 

Straddling a cloud jet-black, 
A Rainbow, borne aback ! 

HER COMPASS 

Love's ruby compass is my heart — 
Come, peep ! and Thou shalt see 

Cupid, therein, hath pinned his dart. 
That cannot resting be. 
Until it turneth unto Thee — 

For ever. Love, Thou art 
The only Lodestar unto me 

And of all Heaven the start I 



Beauty— fancy 145 

LOVE'S ABLUTION 
My little Snowflake, had'st thou dipped 

In Youth's Vermillion wine — 
The rosy stains, thy Spirit sipped, 

Would only make it shine ! 

What! nay? — Then thou would'st lose each 
one, 

In this thy Lover's light — 
As apple blossoms in the sun 

Are washed from red to white ! 



FANCY: EPILOGUE 

Faee-thee-well, my Fancy— 
If thou must be going — 

Tell me where to find thee. 
Just by Nature's showing; 

Break a branch, in passing 

Through my wood, so dim- 
Leave a kiss, by glassing, 
In the brooklet slim ; 

Down the dale, I know well. 
Up the hill, thou fliest — ■■ 

Leave a sign, my gospel, 
Ere thou seeming diest; 



146 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

Fare-thee-well, my Fancy, 
Keep thee well-in-truth ; 

But recall, Miss Nancy, 
Thou hast all my youth! 



Beauty 
m* fantasy 



THE WHITE MOUNTAIN 

Far in the polar regions, where the dawn 

Divides the years in darkness and in light, 

Stands the White Mountain, in a robe so bright 

His splendor is too fair to look upon : 

In perfect peace, unfound by any one — 

Mortality hath not so rare a might 

As breathe such icy air, that breath would 

blight- 
He stands to all eternity alone ! 

What monumental silence — not a sound, 

Save when in striking stars his head is crowned. 

Catching the icy fires of true tints ! 

With instant freezing tears and frosted breath 

Dared Love, alone, to kiss his brow, till hints 

Of moving snowdrifts woke the face of Death ! 

THE INDIAN HELEN 

Indian Summer, autumn serene — 
Yet, in her war-paint, like a queen 
Stands the rose-red Wood, chalked gold and 
green. 
With the dew-beads round her dangling! 

Over the hills, where all hunts cease. 
Wreathing clouds from his Pipe of Peace, 
The Sea-Spirit squats, and dreams his Niece 
Will set all the Red Leaves wrangling ! 



150 Cbrough Dust to Light 

THE TREE OF LIFE 

I. AT SUNSET 

The woven branches of the Tree of Night — 
Whose phantom bole grows black, athwart 

green glare 
Curdling to purple, climbing Heaven's stair — 
Embower the vale with star-buds, golden bright! 
Full-blown one falls, a ruby rose of light. 
Whose clouds of crimson petals prank the Air, 
Swooning in scented arms of Sleep, the Fair, 
As wan and laggard Hours of Day take flight ! 

Airily float the falling shadow-leaves 
From Night's Tree, at red autumn-time of Day, 
As fitful purples a dim dream inlay — 
And, as the sunset withers to pearl sheaves, 
A shower of spectral foliage hides away 
Some mountain green, that Angels' tears 
receives ! 

n. AT DAWN 

The dome, that Tree of Life, that darkling 

Tree- 
Where pends green Apple-earth, cool burnished 

of 
Sweet winds orchestral, down God's orchard 

grove — 
Dapples the pearl stream of Eternity ! 
At blow of dawn, when nothing white is free 
And shadow-leaves are Apple-earth's alcove, 



Beauty— fantasy 151 

The morning-star, upon a branch above, 
[Wakes the vast Hymn of the Nativity ! 

From silver shores the sun-flamingo springs, 
Soaring slowly towards the Apple-earth; 
Then, like the opal snow in sunset flight, 
The Earth is stormed with blossoms of pink 

light, 
As Heaven's Tree turns beryl blue, and flings 
Her leaves, the little clouds, a-flying forth! 

THREE MINIATURES 

PEACOCK 0» THE NIGHT 
Down Heaven's steps, with tender tread 

There sweeps, in stately flight. 
Her Peacock — all his tail outspread — 

The paradisal Night ! 

ELEPHANT O' THE STORM 

Over the desert's drum enorme 
Rolls the Elephant of the Storm — 
Trumpeting, trampling through the dusk^ 
[Tossing the moon, his orient tusk ! 

FAN O' THE RAINBOW 
Heaven — to hide her sorrow. 

When Earth had seen it — 
Flashed out her fan, the rainbow, 

To flirt between it ! 



152 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

THE SHIP OF SLUMBER 
Softly over the lilac sky, 
With silver Moon-sail lifted high, 
Blown with winds from the Old Countree, 

The shadowy Ship of Slumber 
Sails, with many a silver shoon. 
Dancing the reel and rigadoon 
To many a strange, phantasmal tune, 

Stirring the dim vales under! 

Beware of old Slumber's pirate ship ! 
For out of its hold They sometimes slip, 
To steal your Soul through your open lip, 

When you, like a Mermaid, slumber — 
And bear it away, how far away 
To a Land — I swore I would not say — 
Perchance to return you, ere the day. 

If they have too great a number! 

A BAT SONG 

Through silent night 
I steal my flight 

Under the stars with strange delight — 
When owlets shout 
And toads hop out, 

A spirit, blind, I flit about! 
Man has his day — I have my night. 
When timid things fear not his might; 
I flit, when they are folded tight — 

God knows I'm right! 



Beauty— fantasy 153 

SPRING 

A JAPANESE PHANTASY 

Spring shall splinter 
The Dragon, Winter, 

The steel-blue Dragon, rolled: 
And the Spring shall sow 
Its teeth, like snow, 

As Cadmus did of old! 

Behold! far over 
The fields, the clover 

Lifts through the clod each spear — 
Then Spring, on his knees 
Like Cadmus, sees 

Thousands of plumes appear I 

MELODIES OF DEATH 

I. THE ROSE 

Sweet is the rose to see — 
But far, too far from me ! 

It may be much less red. 

When I am dead — 
But it will sweeter be 

Under my head — under my head! 

II. THE STAR 

Sleep, little Star-love, sleep ! 
The lonely tears, you weep, 

Begrudge me not ; 
Under your dreamy head 
The rose's leaves lie dead, 

Dust of my heart! 



15 4 Chrougb Dust to Light 

TONE PORTRAITS 

I. SUNRISE 

Sing ! sweet bird — 
Build thy faery palace, piling 

Word on word — 
Wake the marbly Maid of Morning, 
In her eastern blue-room sleeping! 

She is stirred — 
Flings aside her rosy spread, 
Spilling showers of dew-pearls — 
Leaps, white, from the cloud, her bed — 

Shakes her head. 
Dashing out her golden curls ! 
Now she comes, amid her Flower-girls 

Draped in red! 
While the starry curtains down the eastern sky 
Draw, to let the laughing dancers by! 
Sing, 

Sweet and gay — 
"Day is on her way!" — 
Louder, higher, sweeter shrilling aye! 



n. SUNSET 

Hush! sweet bird — 
Thy faery serenade should fade. 

Shadow-blurred, 
Dream-shadowed by Twilight's brush! 



Beauty— fantasy 155 

Eve's abed, and with a blush, 

Ne'er a word, 
Drops her dewy tresses, streaming 
Dark as water in the winter — 
While each soft, brown eye is beaming. 

As an inland sea 
Full of moonlight dances gleaming! 
Now she draws her rosy spread, then she 

Lies a-dreaming! 
While the starry curtains down the western 

sky 
Fall, to hide her crimson canopy ! 
Softer, lower sound thy sleepy lay, 
"Day winds far away — 

Far away — 
Away !" 



MY GLOBE 

The toy outgrows the boy — 

Before I was a man. 
From what was just a joy 

A world of woe began : 

I am thy toy, O world — 
But when hast thou forgot 

This boy, who could have hurled 
This toy-world from his lot! 



156 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

A DREAM AT SEA 

I SAW the starfish in the sky, 
A midnight whale with moon for eye, 
The Dawn's harpoon, that made him fly, 
Within the dream, that drowned me! 

I wondered what was in the air — 
Was that a Merman over there, 
Or shadow of a form more fair 
Leant over, when she found me? 

NOT A KISS 

What though a butterfly may sip the dew 
Out of a dozen, ruby cups of roses. 
And any humble-bee suck honey, too, 
From any little flower's jug he chooses — 
What though upon the bosom of the lea, 
In bridal veils, the daisies come to rest, 
And many a blushing star lie laughingly 
Under the sunburnt skies, in darkness pressed — 
What though my winged Soul would sip thy 

Soul, 
Pressing the ripe grapes of thy sunny lips. 
And, starving for a crust from Love's full bowl, 
I fain would fold thee, though the bowl o'er- 
tips — 

What though all Nature have Love's 
fullest bliss — 

Craving but Thee, I am forbid that kiss ! 



Beauty— fantasy 157 

BY THE BROOK 

I LOVE thee, little streamlet, 

That plays the whole day long — 
I love to lie on mossy banks, 
Smiling at thy sweet, girlish pranks. 

Lulled by thy dreamy song: 
Lulled by that old sweet song, 

Those minute-bees of thine 
Within my mind how swiftly store 

Their flower-thought divine! 

Bare to the golden sunshine, 

The brook becomes a sky — 
With many a faery cloud of foam 
And loosened leaflet, riding home, 

As it goes running by! 
Now tired racing by. 

Like noon, basks on its bars, 
Where little water-lilies mock 

The shyer golden stars! 

The brook is Nature's sweetheart. 

As pure as she is fair ! 
What laughing wavelets show her pearls. 
What whirlpools, too, her sunny curls — 

She is so debonair! 
Her dimples dizzy Care — 

And, as she trips along. 
How stand the trees, to let her pass, 

Enchanted by her song! 



158 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

Perhaps, adown the hill-side, 

The brook will coast along 
Those steps, all carpeted with moss, 
That numbs her fall, where skirts of floss 

In misty clouds are flung! 
Or, from some noisy throng, 

Will wander far away. 
To run out in the light again 

And hide in scented hay ! 

Oh ! how the leaves go waltzing 

Adown her glassy floor — 
Now sliding, hurried by the tide — 
Now caught and rudely brushed aside. 

To huddle close to shore ! 
Rejected evermore 

By tides, they cannot see, 
Or swept and jostled in the dance, 

Some leaves must ever be. 

The brook will put her shoulder, 

All white with deathless youth. 
To turn the mill-wheel of our Time 
And make it hum the old sweet rhyme, 

Grinding the corn of Ruth ! 
How sweet the song of truth 

As chanted by the brook, 
Where flowers still illuminate 

Old Nature's open book! 



Beauty — fantasy 159 

On sandy shallows laughing, 

Or spooning with the bank — 
Or wreathing rocks with sprays of foam, 
Or whistling through a rushes' comb, 

Or sick on marshes rank, 
The brook doth splash, and prank 

Her bed with lilies fair. 
And then, with water-cress, she weaves 

Herself a lattice lair! 

Oh ! what a heavenly music 

Is hovering in the vale! 
The golden breezes softly blow 
Their rustic flute of reeds, that sough 

And whistle in the gale ! 
In that enchanted pale 

Is where the birds may sing — 
The brook her organ blending 

With chimes the flowers ring ! 

While all the fields are listening 

And basking in the sun, 
Charmed by the music of the Spring, 
They dream and smile at everything. 

While Summer's quilt is spun! 
And, as the brook runs on, 

Sweet Spring, with magic hand. 
From Winter's cornucopia shakes 

Her blossoms o'er the land! 



160 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

EDEN 

Earth is an Apple, green and high, 

With snowy poles — 
Swung in the garden of the Sky, 

Mid star-eyed Souls: 

When the Sun consumes the earth. 

Whose seed is fire, 
The Moon shall know the worth 

Of all desire! 

THE LAND OF O! 

My Soul is like a lonely home, 

Forgotten long ago — 
Left open to the winds, that roam 

Over the polar snow — 
Wide open to the winds, that come 

To wander to and fro 
With strange, phantasmal voices from 

The utter land of O ! 

How still and stark and desolate 

It stands across the shore. 
Through silent ages to await 

The heart, that comes no more; 
Strange gulls go by with cries of hate, 

While to the rocks' wild roar 
The waves repeat, " Too soon — too late,'* 

Forever, as before! 



Beauty— fantasy 161 

TIME'S WATCH 

The Sky is the watch of Time — 

Its crystal face, each day, 
Is turned on the Toilers' rhyme, 

Who mark and mark it aye — 
As clouding up, with every breath. 
It daily grows as dim as Death : 

The Sky is the watch of Time — 

Its open back, each night. 
Is turned on the Dreamers' rhyme. 

Who mark no dark hand's flight — 
For, when all Time is turned, 'tis given 
To watch the jewelled works of Heaven! 

SLEEP-WALKING 

In the starlit night of earth 
Little Life, with dewlit hair, 
Hunted, wandering everywhere 

From his bed of birth — 

Till his old Nurse found him there, 

Dear old, dark-eyed Death : 

"Back to bed, thou Child of Love — 
(He, too, walks within his sleep. 
Dreaming, blindfold, he can peep 

Past the stars above) — 

Back to bed. Life, softly creep. 

Dawn comes soon enough !" 



162 Chrougb Dust to tight 

CORAL ISLANDS 

One by one, my dying days 
Sink beneath the sea — 

Till my head is islanded, 

Wreathed in foam, and free— 

Till, like buried coral, 

I arise, but floral — 
Till the winds afar 
Make me like a star! 



THE GODDESS OF THE DEAD 

The twilit. Eastern maiden said — 
"My lips are poppies, dreamful red — 
Kiss me, and all the world hath fled 

Away — 
Kiss me, and dream that thou art dead 

For aye!" 

The twilit. Eastern maiden said — 
""I am the Goddess of the Dead — 
A man is not a Man, till wed 

To Me— 
O come! come kiss my poppies red, 
Die on my lips, and buy instead 

Eternity !" 



Beauty— fantasy 163 

THE SHORE 

The stones, cast on this shore by many a tide, 
From sundered deeps now slumber side by side ; 
Rolled into spheres, their grains are slowly 

ground 
Into each other with a musical sound! 



THE TUNNEL 

Life is a tunnel — labyrinthine, dun; 

Dark are its ends — Birth, Death — its loopholes 

bright ; 
These are the stars, through which God shoots 

the light. 
That points and gilds the gloomy roads we run : 
The low highways of Life are longer spun 
Than paths, that pioneers scarce pierce 

aright — 
Hoping to find a plain, upon the height. 
Where men will not be crying for the sun : 

In misty gloom the lamps of thought are hung. 

Fed by immortal minds forevermore — 

And still the lightnings of those truths, they 

swung. 
Waken the ghosts among their caverns hoar ; 
From sunlit mountains to the sunlit shore, 
Man's river trips through to its old, sweet song ! 



164 rbrougb Dust to Light 

LOVE'S MUSIC 

Sorrows He from joy to joy — 

The unsounded notes 
In his hands, that heavenly boy, 

Whence our music floats: 
Scarcely may his fingers move, 

When the notes estrange — 
Yet, a little more, and Love 

Makes a sweeter change! 

THE SEA OF SLEEP 

Sinking slowly, sinking slowly 

Down the dim ocean of sleep — 
Mine ears grow dull, as they grow more full 

Of that circulating deep — 
Softer the hush and the wash and wash 

Of waves on a vanishing shore — 
Only the hum of the mumbling drum 

Of waves on a shore of yore: 

Sinking slowly, sinking slowly — 

All but the eyes asleep, 
Distant and dim the phantoms swim 

Through the green and glassy deep — 
No pain can come to my body numb, 

Lapped in the cooling dream — 
And yet, in the day, mysterious sea, 

As darkling as Death, you seem! 



Beauty— fantasy 165 

THE EMBER HEART AND THE HANDS 
OF SNOW 

She holds my heart within her hands, 

My heart an ember low — 
Oh! come, ye winds, from distant lands — 

Her hands are made of snow! 

Oh ! come, ye winds, come quick and blow 
The heart, that hardly flashes, 

So may it melt them, now — or oh! 
They turn my heart to ashes ! 

A GHOSTLY MORNING 

It is a misty morning, fringed with frost; 
The air, I think, is Heaven's tearful milk. 
Draping the mead in white, as soft as silk — 
And, melting in the distance, all is lost: 
The saddened sky, like some affrighted ghost, 
With tear-dimmed eye and bloodshot, sees each 

whelk — 
Each whitened brow, by which the meadows 

bilk 
His love by frowning, feigning age at most! 

A sleepy silence hovers over all. 
And lo ! the breathless meadow seems to doze ; 
But, as my heels on ringing byways fall, 
The silence shudders at the croaking crows — 
While on the opaque tide, wrinkled and tall. 
The wriggling images of trees repose! 



166 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

GOD'S ACRE 

This is God's acre — 
Let none break her; 
That is his shadow, 
Death, the scarecrow! 



THE CANOE 

ON SEEING WHIRLS OF PHOSPHORUS FROM MY 
PADDLE 

He sails in silence, gliding o'er 

The milky way; 
But whither, whither lies the shore — 

No one can say! 

And, as He paddles o'er Earth's bars, 

As still as never. 
He stirs to light a thousand stars, 

That whirl forever! 

So high on darkness doth He pass, 

No eye can find Him; 
For every starry whirl, alas! 

He leaves behind Him! 

Who is He? and whence comes this Dream? 

Who dares deliver 
The Unborn Worlds ? . . . What then, they seem 

Sublime Forever! 






Beauty— fantasy 167 



THE WINE-PRESS 
I SEE a fine, old wine-press, 
What marble, white as snow — 
And streams of purple sweetness 
Splash in the urns below; 

Ho ! in the press a baby, 

A white and rosy boy. 

Is trampling grapes— what? Maybe 

He only screams for joy! 

But what is that, engraven 
But half worn from the press? 
Look, there, beneath that raven — 
"L-I-F-E," I guess! 

That boy — why is that Cupid? 
And are those grapes our hearts? 
Now does it not seem stupid 
For them to play such parts! 

And yet — I be confessing 
The wine is madding sweet! 
But oh ! for all Love's pressing 
How purple are his feet! 

THE-LILY-OF-THE-FIELD 

Ye lilies-of-the-field ! How came ye red— - 
Is it not since the Saviour hath been dead? 



168 Cbrougb Dust to Light 

REST 
Happy the man, who lies — when life is shed — 
At peace, with both the living and the dead; 
No step disturbs the Soul, whose life was 

sound — 
But Crime awakes her Sleeper, underground! 

LAUGHTER 

Laughter is made of Incongruities — 

And so are Dreams — oh ! Laughter is a Dream : 

Up! sulky Death — how Light his Sleep, who 

Sees, 
Without a Smile, what Fools we Mortals seem! 

DAWN 

A WIND blew out among the stars — 

That shook, like dandelions — 
They shed their gold, and burst in gray, 

As Dawn rose on his pinions! 
An Angel plucked the morning-star — 

It was the last to stay — 
And blew its seeds of light afar, 

"She loves me! — Comes today!" 

AGE 

Six feet tall he used to be — 
Now he's not as tall as me ; 
Strength is not in being tall, 
He has been compressed — that's all! 



Beauty— fantasy 169 

THREE ROSES IN ONE 

A WHITE rose is the ghost of all — » 

She doth on earth unfold 

One rose, that is her naked self, 

One red, and one of gold: 

That rose is Love, as white as Death — 

Blushing, is Life — ^but gold, the Soul — 

For this White Rose draws from beneath 

What lights her up, her gold heart's sheath. 

What burns, or blushes through; so she — 

Red, white, or gold — in one is three ! 

FANTASY: EPILOGUE 

With rainbow wings my Fancy springs 
Up from the inlaid meadows — 

And, soaring o'er the truth of things, 
Becomes the life of shadows; 

I call her Fantasy, because 

In fancy she was here. 
But, having dropt her earthly dress, 

She hath a higher sphere! 



WAY 23 l»ii 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
MAY 23 ^^U 



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